Why use both milk and cream in a waffle recipe? I live in Europe and use a lot of European recipes. Here, traditional waffle recipes generally use a mixture of cream and milk as the liquid. The recipes include melted butter, so I don't understand what the cream is doing. Any ideas?
Bocuse recipe for waffles (as an example) (found in Paul Bocuse &quot;Die Neue Küche&quot; Heyne Kochbücher 1976) - but representative of a great many traditional European recipes for dessert waffles.

500 g flour
a pinch of baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
250 ml milk
750 ml heavy cream
8 egg yolks
100 ml rum
300 g melted butter
4 egg whites

Is there a technical or chemical reason to use cream, even if you are already using butter?
I can't say with absolute positivity on this, but I suspect it's because butter in Europe is often cultured, i.e. made using partially fermented cream, which changes its flavor and makes it a bit acidic. Cream is not cultured, so it has a 'neutral' flavor, the ratio of butter to cream is balanced to give the right flavor profile.