The Stars and the Cookie Jar

I have finished the ever-so-laborious conversions on a recipe for gauffrettes fines, which my great-grandmother on my father's side taught me to make when I was... ummm. Six? Only she never used a pan with waffle indentations, or a waffle maker, so essentially they were crumpets.

She was very senile, and all she had left of her memory was this is how you make a Mont Blanc (where the hell can I find a chestnut mill these days?), this is how you make a rouille -- a pan-Francophone cooking class in a cranky, wandering brain. I don't remember anything about her except her collection of rolling pins -- a long very thin marble one, a hugely broad wooden one with a honey-coloured varnish -- and her silver hair in a bun on top of her head, and her black plastic eyeglasses. I don't know anything about her at all, really. I can't feel a particular kinship with her. But the kitchen in my head is very like the one she had.

Gauffrettes

18 ounces flour
7 ounces brown sugar
7 ounces white sugar
8 fluid ounces milk or half-and-half cream
3 eggs
Pinch salt

Butter for frying

Mix to a thick batter and leave overnight, covered, in the fridge. In the morning, heat a flat pan until you can hold your hand over it no longer than a count of 10. Add more butter than you care to contemplate and before it can brown, pour the gauffrette batter about 1/4 cup at a time into the pan. When the surface bubbles, turn the gauffrette. There will always be a 'sacrificial gauffrette' while you get the pan temperature right.

Serve with whipped cream, Devon cream, butter, preserves or sugar.