1949 - present

Aussies love the closed toasted sandwich known as the jaffle. Dr Ernest E. Smithers had lived in Bondi for 10 years when he designed, named and patented the ‘jaffle iron’ kitchen device in Australia, in June 1949. It was classed as a ‘pressure toaster’, and those two words, along with the name ‘Jaffle’, were embossed on the lid. The advantage of the sturdy cast-iron device was that the edges of the bread were pressed together to contain the hot filling. Home cooks took to it immediately.

A spin-off, the ‘jaffle maker’, was invented in 1974 by the Australian company Breville, and a jaffle was then nicknamed a Breville.

Dr Smithers invented not only the jaffle iron but the ‘surf-o-plane’, an inflated corrugated-rubber surf mat that was famously hired out on Bondi Beach. He patented that invention as well, and the documents for both patents are stored at the National Archives of Australia, in Canberra.

When the good doctor was designing the jaffle iron, he probably found inspiration in the ‘wafer iron’ that was used in medieval times. The manufacturers who created the first advertisements for the jaffle iron described it as a pressure toaster, trading off the idea of the pressure cooker. Its advantage was that the edges of the bread were pressed together to contain the hot filling.

Aussies embraced the device fervently and attended cookery demonstrations to learn how to use it, and it frequently popped up as a desirable prize at shows, social events and the odd charity ‘do’. Sadly, it could also be used as a weapon, a fact that was made known in a headline in a December 1953 issue of the Illawarra Mercury daily newspaper: “Wife hit husband with ‘jaffle iron’; fined £3”.

Jaffles were touted as being “the latest cookery creation for all the family to enjoy” and were considered trendy enough for home entertaining. A 1949 issue of Perth’s Western Mail weekly newspaper contained this proclamation aimed at aspiring home cooks: “Really useful for everyday cooking as well as parties is the jaffle iron, which is very simple to use and produces a most appetising toast ‘pie’. All that you do is make a thick sandwich and, after clamping it shut in the iron, heat it over a flame. It may be used over any type of heat, and we suggest that if you are having a barbecue, it might be an idea to provide your guests with three or four bowls of appetising filling and let them make their own.”

Food manufacturers soon latched on to the craze, happy that consumers could purchase single or double models of the device – or both. In 1950, a reward for a lost jaffle iron was wistfully offered in a notice published in Mount Gambier’s Border Watch.

Courtesy Nine Fairfax Media and the National Library of Australia.