Wafer Iron
Display: Hearth to Cookstove
Culinary Technique: forming
Date: 1877
Dimensions: 3.5" h x 6.25" w x 31" d
Watch collection donor Mel Mickevic demonstrate this object with
Dean Christopher
Koetke, School of Culinary Arts, Kendall College,
and Victoria Matranga, exhibition curator.
Blacksmiths handcrafted cast- or wrought-iron kitchen utensils, such as this wafer iron that pressed dough into flat disks for wafer cookies similar to pizzelles. Such a long-handled press, used in a fireplace or over an open fire, was common in Europe in the Middle Ages and later in the United States. The maker incised the date in the grid pattern, along with six initials, possibly of the owner's name, on the inner plates.