Growing up in New York City, my Cantonese mom, who hails from Hong Kong, would purchase my baby sister and me a dollar’s value of bubble waffles, or gai daan jai (鷄蛋仔), to share each and every weekend.
We’d get about 20 pieces in a scorching, brown paper bag, and Mother always took two parts as “food tax.” When we attained our grandparents’ condominium on East Broadway from Pell Road and Bowery, the bag would be vacant, and my sister and I normally wished we each experienced our individual bag.
Bubble waffles ended up a huge section of my mother’s childhood, my childhood, and, presently, my son’s. This address means so much to me that I even created a recipe for it in my 2nd cookbook.
When I figured out about Trader Joe’s bubble waffles, my enjoyment was palpable (I squealed). I was so eager to try them that I produced two excursions from Renton to Kent irrespective of my dislike for driving. On the initially working day, the waffles hadn’t arrived but, so I requested an affiliate named Kyle to maintain two models for me. I picked them up the up coming day, and when I checked, I identified the freezer aisle vacant of the waffles. It was distinct that these waffles were being in superior demand.
This doesn’t shock me. For $4.forty nine, you get 4 four-inch frozen waffles for each box. The box, pink and yellow, is super cute, and even if someone doesn’t know what a bubble waffle is, I feel they’d gravitate toward the box.
Now, whilst these waffles have a chewy mochi-like center, they aren’t gluten-free of charge given that they include wheat flour. What gives them the mochi texture is tapioca starch (the main ingredient of boba pearls) fairly than glutinous rice flour (the principal ingredient of mochi). I looked all over the box, hoping for a point out of Hong Kong or a blurb outlining bubble waffles, but I could not come across any.
Only Recipes / Trader Joe’s
What I Appreciate About Trader Joe’s Bubble Waffles
The moment back again at home, I promptly manufactured the waffles for brunch, pursuing the effortless heating directions on the packaging. Trader Joe’s prefers them air-fried but also presents guidance on working with the toaster oven or microwave.
I heated two in the air fryer for 5 minutes, one particular in the toaster for six minutes, and one in the microwave for underneath a person moment. There was no considerable variance between the air-fried and toasted waffles: equally versions had a shiny, crispy exterior with a chewy, comfortable inside.
The microwaved version, however, lacked the crispiness and was incredibly tender and chewy, like a significant, incredibly hot boba pearl. I savored the air-fried and toasted versions a lot more. For hectic mothers like me, in a pinch, you can speedily whip up these waffles, and I take pleasure in that.
These bubble waffles are also legit in phrases of aesthetics and scent. Flavor-sensible, they are a little heavier on the vanilla notes and sweeter than the bubble waffles I have gotten from Cantonese avenue distributors or created myself. But that signifies you can take pleasure in these on their own, with no a drizzle of caramel, syrup, or honey, for breakfast or as a snack. And currently being on the smaller side, these waffles go down rapid. Right before I realized it, I had finished 1 and moved on to a next. (Justified, though, mainly because I was tests them for this report!)
Bubble waffles from Hong Kong had been invented all around the sixties when road vendors necessary a way to use up damaged or leftover eggs. I generally imagined these waffles had been identified as gai daan jai (which signifies tiny chicken eggs in Cantonese) mainly because they bundled eggs. Now I understand they are named this way for their shapes—each waffle bubble resembles a tiny brown egg. So, last of all and considerably ironically, I like that these bubble waffles are egg-no cost and vegan, earning these snacks a lot more inclusive and friendly for all those with dairy or egg allergic reactions.
Though these bubble waffles are not particularly like the kinds from my childhood, they’re a enjoyment modern twist. I’m delighted that a snack from my childhood and memory lane is now obtainable to a broader audience—a piece of Hong Kong road meals can be in your freezer too!
