In a small bakery on the edge of Gouda’s market square, around 1810, a baker named Gerard Kamphuisen pressed two thin waffles together around a warm syrup filling. He sold them for a penny each to market workers who needed warmth and something sweet. Nobody predicted that two hundred years later, billions of people would repeat this ritual across the world — balancing the same biscuit on a coffee cup and waiting.
What Is a Stroopwafel?
The name gives it away directly. Stroop means syrup. Wafel means waffle. Two thin, crisp circular wafers sandwich a layer of warm caramel filling made from syrup, butter, cinnamon, and cloves.
The wafers themselves are simple: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and yeast, pressed in a patterned iron until golden and firm. The filling gets melted in a pan until smooth, then spread quickly while still warm between the two hot wafer halves.
Every Dutch person has an opinion on the right way to eat one. Most agree on this: place it flat on top of a hot coffee cup and wait sixty to ninety seconds. The steam from below softens the caramel until it turns molten and fragrant. Only after this small ritual of patience does the stroopwafel taste the way it should.
The Baker Behind the Biscuit
Gerard Kamphuisen ran a bakery in Gouda. He made stroopwafels from leftovers — crumbs and offcuts from other baking, pressed into wafers and filled with syrup to give them flavour. Waste nothing; sell everything.
The market workers who bought them carried them in their pockets. The biscuits stayed fresh for days. They filled a gap in the market that nobody had named yet: something portable, satisfying, sweet, and cheap enough to buy by the bag.
For most of the 19th century, stroopwafels stayed local. Gouda bakers made them. Gouda market stalls sold them. Visitors to the town bought a few to take home to South Holland. Beyond the province, almost nobody had heard of them.
Gouda’s story runs much deeper than biscuits, of course. The city gave the world far more than cheese — its medieval streets and Gothic town hall tell a history stretching back seven centuries.
From Market Stall to Dutch Icon
Mass production changed everything. By the 1930s and 1940s, machines replaced hand-pressed irons. Bakeries across Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht began producing their own versions. Supermarkets stocked them from the 1960s onwards.
The brand Daelmans, founded in 1909 in the town of Leerdam, built the modern stroopwafel industry. Today Daelmans produces roughly 1.7 billion stroopwafels per year — a figure so large it sounds invented but is not. Each individually wrapped biscuit carries the same basic recipe: wafer, syrup, cinnamon, cloves.
By the 1980s, Dutch supermarkets exported stroopwafels to neighbouring countries. By the 1990s, they reached the United States. The penny biscuit had become an industry.
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The KLM Effect — and a Space Station
Two moments launched the stroopwafel into global consciousness. The first came in 1992, when KLM Royal Dutch Airlines began serving stroopwafels on short-haul flights. Passengers from fifty countries tasted one for the first time, soft from the heat of their in-flight coffee.
Many took spare packets home. Others looked for them in shops when they landed. The stroopwafel moved from a novelty to a discovery to a habit, replicated in kitchens far from Gouda.
The second moment arrived in 2019, when NASA astronaut Anne McClain confirmed eating stroopwafels aboard the International Space Station. A Gouda baker’s penny biscuit had reached orbit at 400 kilometres above the Earth. Kamphuisen would not have believed it.
Gouda Still Makes the Finest Ones
Supermarket stroopwafels are crisp, shelf-stable, and good. The handmade ones in Gouda taste like a different food entirely.
Several market vendors in Gouda still press stroopwafels over open flames using traditional cast-iron irons. They slice a hot wafer disc in two with a fast horizontal cut, smear warm syrup across one half, and press the two halves back together. The whole process takes fifteen seconds. The biscuit comes out soft, warm, and fragrant with cinnamon.
Thursday mornings bring the best crowds to Gouda market. The fresh stroopwafel stalls run out before noon. Locals arrive early; tourists arrive too late and learn the lesson for next time.
How the Dutch Eat Them Today
In Dutch homes, stroopwafels live in the kitchen cupboard beside the coffee and the tea. They appear at office meetings, at school breaks, on train journeys, at birthday parties. Children eat them in two bites. Adults balance them on mugs and wait.
The Dutch also give them as small tokens of thanks. Start a new job, bring stroopwafels for your colleagues. Win something at school, bring stroopwafels for the class. They are the country’s universal gesture of appreciation — low effort, universally appreciated, unmistakably Dutch.
The wider world of Dutch food has its own rituals. The Dutch pancake house tradition runs just as deep — a different kind of comfort food, but one that locals defend with equal loyalty.
For a wider introduction to what the Netherlands offers travellers, start here for the essential guide before planning your trip.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I buy the best stroopwafels in the Netherlands?
The finest fresh stroopwafels come from handmade stalls at Gouda’s Thursday market, where vendors press them over open flames. For supermarket versions, the brand Daelmans is the Dutch standard. Most supermarkets across the Netherlands stock several varieties.
What is the correct way to eat a stroopwafel?
Place it flat on top of a hot cup of coffee or tea and wait sixty to ninety seconds. The steam softens the caramel filling from below. Eating one cold is acceptable, but the Dutch consider it missing the point entirely.
Can I buy Dutch stroopwafels outside the Netherlands?
Yes. Stroopwafels appear in European supermarkets, American grocery chains, Australian delis, and Asian convenience stores. Several Dutch online shops ship internationally. For the freshest experience, visit Gouda’s market in person on a Thursday morning.
Who invented the stroopwafel and when?
The stroopwafel traces back to baker Gerard Kamphuisen in Gouda, around 1810. He made them from leftover crumbs and sold them cheaply at the local market. The recipe has changed little since then.
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Every time someone rests a stroopwafel on their coffee cup and waits, they repeat a ritual that Gerard Kamphuisen invented in a Gouda market stall two centuries ago. He never patented it. He just got the recipe exactly right — and the world eventually agreed.