Waffle Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
5correct to beat the crowd
48 free Waffle trivia questions with answers — food & drink quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
40 free Waffle trivia questions with answers. Waffle trivia goes back further than most food quizzes: the Greeks were pressing flat cakes between hot metal plates, medieval guilds fought over who could make them, and the first written recipe is a 14th-century husband explaining the job to his wife. From there this quiz follows the waffle everywhere it went. The Brussels waffle and the one Americans call Belgian, which is really a brand name. The Liege pockets, the Hong Kong grid cake, the stroopwafel that is split apart while it is still hot. Then the industrial era: the 1869 patent that made the iron flippable, the frozen waffle invented in a San Jose plant in 1953, the chain that opened in Georgia in 1955, and the running shoe that started as ruined kitchen equipment. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and every answer is written against an encyclopaedic source with the sentence that proves it, so a waffle argument at breakfast can be settled properly.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The English word 'waffle' comes directly from which language?
Dutch
Dutch 'wafel' gave English the word; behind it sits the Frankish word for honeycomb, which is exactly what the iron leaves behind.
Q 02Krumkake, Norway's thin patterned waffle cookie, is rolled into what shape while warm?
A cone
A cone: krumkake, whose name means 'bent cake', is baked thin in a decorated iron and rolled around a wooden cone while still soft, then often filled with whipped cream.
Q 03In which year did the word 'waffle' first appear in English?
1725
1725 is the year 'waffle' first appears in English, in a recipe beginning 'Waffles. Take flower, cream'; by then waffles had been cooked in Europe for some four centuries.
Q 04What did the ancient Greeks cook between hot metal plates?
Flat cakes
Flat cakes came off those plates, which evolved into the long-handled irons of medieval Europe, held over an open fire.
Q 05What was the medieval ancestor of the waffle called?
The oublie
The oublie, a medieval wafer of flour and water much like a communion wafer, is the waffle's direct ancestor; it was cooked between two hinged iron plates held over a fire.
Q 06In which year did the guild of medieval wafer-makers form?
1270
1270 is the year the oublieurs, the medieval wafer-makers, were recognised as a guild; their light wafers evolved into the waffle over the following centuries.
Q 07What 11th-century movement brought flavourings like orange blossom water into the medieval wafers that became waffles?
The Crusades
The Crusades carried new ingredients into Western Europe; before that, sweetness came from local honey, if it came at all.
Q 08The first known waffle recipe, from the late 14th century, was written by whom?
A husband instructing his young wife
A husband instructing his young wife wrote it: Le Ménagier de Paris (c. 1393) gives the earliest known waffle recipe and ends by advising an oiled cloth on the iron if the dough sticks.
Q 09Which 16th-century painter's work shows waffles in enough detail to count the grid?
Bruegel
Bruegel's 1559 painting The Fight Between Carnival and Lent shows waffles with a 12 by 7 grid of square cells, implying a thin batter much like a Brussels waffle.
Q 10Brussels waffles are easiest to tell from Liege waffles by what?
Their rectangular sides
Their rectangular sides give Brussels waffles away; they are leavened with egg white or ale yeast, which is what gives them the big open pockets.
Q 11Who formalised the Brussels waffle recipe in 1842?
Florian Dacher
Florian Dacher, a Swiss baker working in Ghent who had trained under pastry chefs in central Brussels, formalised the Brussels waffle recipe in 1842.
Q 12Where does the term 'Belgian waffle' actually come from?
A brand called Bel-Gem
A brand called Bel-Gem: Maurice Vermersch of Brussels sold his thick waffles to American fairgoers as 'Bel-Gem Waffles', using 'Belgian' because few Americans knew Brussels was Belgium's capital.
Q 13At which event was the thick Belgian style popularised in America?
The 1964 New York World's Fair
Q 21Where does the Eggo brand name come from?
An earlier mayonnaise
An earlier mayonnaise: the Dorsa brothers first sold Eggo mayonnaise in the 1930s, named for its fresh eggs; the name later covered waffle mix and potato chips before the frozen waffle took over.
Q 22On which date is National Waffle Day celebrated in the United States?
August 24
August 24: US National Waffle Day marks the day in 1869 when the first American patent for a waffle iron was granted to an inventor from Troy, New York.
Q 23At the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, what did Ernest Hamwi curl into an ice cream holder?
A waffle cookie
The 1964 New York World's Fair is where Americans met the thick style, sold at Maurice Vermersch's stand; the deeper, airier waffle topped with strawberries and whipped cream caught on nationally.
Q 14What leavens a standard American waffle?
Baking powder
Baking powder does the lifting; Brussels waffles use egg white or ale yeast instead, which is what gives them the big open pockets.
Q 15How is a Hong Kong 'grid cake' eaten?
Folded into a semicircle
Folded into a semicircle: the Hong Kong grid cake is spread with butter, peanut butter and sugar on one side, then folded in half and eaten warm from street hawkers.
Q 16Who patented the first stove-top waffle iron, in 1869?
Cornelius Swartwout
Cornelius Swartwout of Troy, New York, received the first US patent for a waffle iron in 1869; it was built to sit on a stove top rather than be held over an open fire.
Q 17What did the 1869 US waffle-iron patent add to the design?
A handle and swivelling hinge
A handle and swivelling hinge let the cook flip the iron without slips or burns; irons had existed since the 1400s, but flipping one over a fire was a good way to lose the waffle.
Q 18Which company introduced the first commercial waffle maker to run on mains power, in 1918?
General Electric
General Electric built a prototype electric waffle iron in 1911 and put the first commercial model on sale in 1918, moving waffle-making from the hearth to the kitchen counter.
Q 19How many professional waffle craftsmen remained in Paris by the early 20th century?
29
29 professional oublieurs were all that remained in Paris by the early 20th century; the trade had collapsed into home cooking, helped along by boxed mixes in the 1930s.
Q 20Who invented the frozen Eggo waffle, in 1953?
Frank Dorsa
Frank Dorsa and his brothers launched Eggo frozen waffles in 1953, having built a rotating machine that could cook, freeze and package waffles at scale.
A waffle cookie curled into a cone was Hamwi's improvisation when the ice cream vendor beside him ran out of paper cups.
Q 24Chicken and waffles began as part of which culinary tradition?
Pennsylvania Dutch cooking
Pennsylvania Dutch cooking's original version is plain waffle, pulled stewed chicken and gravy, no syrup anywhere.
Q 25Which 1938 Harlem establishment popularised soul-food chicken and waffles?
Wells Supper Club
Wells Supper Club, opened in Harlem in 1938, served fried chicken beside a butter-and-syrup breakfast waffle to late-night jazz crowds, popularising the soul food version.
Q 26Before chicken, which food did hotels outside Philadelphia serve with waffles in the early 1800s?
Fried catfish
Fried catfish and waffles was the early-1800s speciality of inns and hotels outside Philadelphia; catfish was seasonal, so kitchens switched to chicken, which was available all year.
Q 27Whose waffle iron did the Nike co-founder ruin by pouring rubber into it?
His wife's
His wife's: Bill Bowerman ruined Barbara Bowerman's waffle iron by pouring rubber into it; the iron was dug out of a rubbish pit on the family property decades later and now sits in Nike's archive.
Q 28Where did the first Waffle House open, in 1955?
Avondale Estates, Georgia
Avondale Estates, Georgia, just outside Atlanta, got the first Waffle House on Labor Day 1955; the original building was later turned into the Waffle House Museum.
Q 29Who founded the Waffle House chain?
Joe Rogers Sr. and Tom Forkner
Joe Rogers Sr. and Tom Forkner opened the first Waffle House in 1955; Rogers had started as a short-order cook in New Haven in 1947, and the two men died within two months of each other in 2017.
Q 30At Waffle House, hash browns ordered 'smothered' come with what added?
Onions
Onions: in Waffle House's hash-brown code, 'smothered' adds grilled onions, 'covered' adds cheese, 'chunked' adds ham and 'topped' adds chili.