There’s a whole cult of passionate pie makers who use their beloved kitchen appliance to make all kind of dishes, which are definitely not pies. Pie Maker groups are packed with photos of pie maker cupcakes, muffins, ‘snow cakes’, quiche and more.

But I thought why should I restrict myself only to the pie maker? How about the humble toasted sandwich (otherwise known as the jaffle) maker? I reckon this simple kitchen appliance can do much loftier things than we give it credit for. So I thought I would put it to the test.

Let’s Try…Jaffle Cakes

My first attempt was cookies and cream pillow ‘sandwich maker’ cakes. I’m not usually a box-cake person – in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever used a box cake before. It’s not like I have anything against convenience cake – it’s just that I love baking – stirring, kneading, pouring, it’s all so therapeutic for me – so I’ve just never felt the need to use a box. But I happened to spot a Greens cookies and cream cupcake kit at Aldi for really cheap the other day and thought why not?

I then went down to the garage to haul out our el-cheapo Kmart $7 toasted sanger machine from our storage boxes but you really don’t want to know what I found when I opened it up. Yuck – let’s just say it was growing a whole city of mould on its metal plates. That went straight into the bin and I took off to Target where I bought a Sunbeam “Big One’ Sandwich Maker for $39 – way more than I wanted to spend but I figured if the cakes didn’t work out, at least I could make deep dish mega toasties with my new purchase.

I first seasoned the sandwich maker with butter and almost burnt the house down when I forgot to remove the plastic lining inside the machine. Yikes! So after I peeled off specks of burnt plastic from the plates, I was ready to begin baking.

I followed the instructions at the back of the box to mix up the batter. I opened the jaffle machine and spooned in the batter. I figured there are two ways to prepare a toasted sandwich maker cake:

Go Big

1) You can go big and fill the entire two squares with batter. This way you would have cake resembling a piece of toast, which you could then separate into halves once cooked.

Small Triangles

2) Go smaller and fill only the triangle shapes – which will produce smaller sized cakes.

I opted for the second option, added the batter and turned on the machine, closed it and waited.

I opened the machine after 4 minutes and gave the cakes a quick flip – careful they’re hot – so use a spatula or fish slice.

After another 3 minutes, I used a skewer to check the doneness of the cakes and once the skewer came out clean, I knew they were ready.

The cakes came out easily and I let them cool before preparing the icing included in the kit to frost my cakes. I then topped off my treat with crumbled Oreos.

Thumbs Up…Or Down?

And then it was the moment of truth….

I was a bit apprehensive to try the cakes but they were absolutely delicious! Moist, chocolatey and dreamy. The exterior was slightly crunchy while the inside had the perfect crumb. So yum!

The kids thought the shape of the cakes was very weird but once they got over this, they finished them off enthusiastically.

What’s Next?

A whole world of cooking creativity has just opened up. I can’t wait to try out more sandwich maker concoctions. Perhaps quiche or pikelets will be next. Or maybe sandwich maker bread or omelettes or how about a nutella stuffed puff pastry jaffle. Oooohhhh…I can’t wait!

Would you be keen to try a jaffle cake? Tell us in the comments below.

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