Yeasted Waffles

Waffles for me are like pancake's fussy cousins. To the casual onlooker, they are just pancake batter baked in a funny pan. And yet, they are a treat I have yet to really master.

There are two main types of waffle batter. Quick batters rely on some combination of baking soda, baking powder, and (sometimes) egg whites for leavening. Yeasted waffles rely on (you guessed it) yeast.

I usually end up making the non-yeasted variety because yeast requires hours to rise, and I prefer to sleep in the wee hours of the morning rather than make batter. But the quicker kind usually has a big downside: most of them require one or two egg whites beaten to stiff peaks. As much as I dearly love my stand mixer, it is incapable of whisking less than about six egg whites. And doing it with a hand mixer takes 5-10 minutes of non stop bowl-scraping and blending. Don't even think about doing it with a plain old whisk unless you are bored and looking for an upper arm workout.

I found a great deal on a deep waffle maker recently, so I thought I would take it for a whirl with actual overnight yeast waffles. The result is shown in my photo above (forgive any uneven browning...it takes a while to learn the quirks of a new cooking tool).  The batter was pretty fast to make (stirred up about ten PM last night), and the prep work this morning was mostly unpacking the new toy and reading its instructions.

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups milk (I used skim)
• 1 stick (1/2 cup, 8 Tbsp) butter, melted
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons bread machine yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. Whisk melted butter into the milk..
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk the dry ingredients. Add the butter/milk mixture and whisk together (I really mean whisk here--I promise it will work better than a spatula and the batter is not heavy).
3. Whisk the eggs and vanilla together, then add to the rest of the batter. Whisk well.
   Cover the bowl and refrigerate overnight.
4. Heat your waffle iron. If necessary, brush the plates with cooking oil (avoid using sprays because excess spray will bake onto the plates).
5. Take the batter out of the fridge and stir.
6. Pour onto the waffle iron and bake according to the directions. Typically that means baking until it mostly stops steaming.
7. Serve warm, or set cooked waffles on a wire rack so the bottoms don't get soggy (keep them on a rack in the oven set to warm/200 if you are not going to eat them right away).
8. Leftovers can be frozen and re-heated in a toaster for quick weekday breakfasts

Make Ahead Buttery Waffles

Crispy, buttery waffles are well worth the time to prepare. Fresh waffles are a Saturday morning breakfast in our house, but even on a weekend, they can be time consuming. With a waffle iron that kicks out four at a time, I spend half an hour or more waiting on waffles to bake (a vast improvement over the 2-waffle iron I had used previously).



My basic waffle recipe (use 1 stick melted butter instead of the cooking oil to make them even tastier) makes about 16 4x5 inch waffles, way more than we can eat in one sitting.

I cool the leftovers on a wire rack (so they don't get soggy), and then put them in zip-top bags and freeze.  The kids pop them straight from the freezer into the toaster for quick school-day breakfasts.They are far tastier and much much cheaper than the store-bought kind (hello, $3 for 8 waffles? I think homemade comes to under $1 and I don't add unusual preservatives or artificial ingredients).

If you have noticed the blond cutie in the photo over on the right, that would be my new hire here at Year of the Pancake. His job duties include whisking, heckling, sampling, and of course, he's the official blog photographer.

Hot Strawberry Waffle Topping

 Sunday morning breakfast was waffles. Buttermilk waffles. Buttermilk waffles with hot strawberry preserves. Buttermilk waffles with hot strawberry preserves, sausage, and a vanilla latte. 

My waffle recipe of the day was straight out of the America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook that I have quite literally loved to pieces.

It was not a  fancy waffle recipe--buttermilk, flour, eggs, melted butter, baking soda--but I made up for the un-fancy recipe by using a fancy crystal dish for serving my topping.

The strawberry topping is easier than the waffles, and can cook while doing the rest of the waffle prep (whisking egg whites, melting butter, heating the pan).  It is a good way to use up strawberries that are just on the squishy edge of ripe.

If you have ever canned homemade jam, you might recognize the recipe below. There's no added pectin and no boiling water baths, but really, I just made preserves. If you make extra, keep the leftovers in the fridge or the freeze and spread on toast. Or on homemade buttermilk biscuits. Hmmm...I have more buttermilk in the fridge....

Hot Strawberry Waffle Topping
Ingredients

• About 1 pound sliced strawberries, fresh or frozen. If you want more of a jam consistency, chop the strawberries smaller to start. If you like your topping chunky, slice them in half and leave some smaller berries whole.
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp dried powdered lemon rind, or about 1 teaspoon lemon juice.

Directions

1. Put strawberries, sugar, and lemon into a sauce pan.
2. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for about 20 minutes until they are thick and syrup-y.
3. No really, that's it.

(It's good to run out of flour every now and then. Gives you a chance to throw the canister through the dishwasher.)

Basic Waffles

No, they're not pancakes. They're the fussier, fancier cousin of pancakes. Waffles require a single-use appliance, either whipped egg whites or a yeast-based batter which has to rise overnight, and you're at the mercy of your waffle iron's cooking speed.

And while you can use pancake batter in a waffle iron and get decent results, waffles are better when they are airy on the inside and crispy on the outside. This recipe adds a little cinnamon, which I think goes beautifully with maple syrup. If you're planning an incompatible topping, you could leave the cinnamon out or substitute a different spice (dried lemon or orange zest, a small dash of almond extract, your pantry's the limit)

Basic Waffles

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 3/4 cups milk
• 1/2 cup cooking oil
• 2 egg whites

Directions:

1. Heat your waffle iron according to the directions.
2. Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl with a whisk. Set aside.
3. In another bowl, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Set aside.
4. In a third (and final, I swear!) bowl, whisk the egg yolks, milk, and cooking oil.
5. Add the liquids (minus the egg-white-foam) to the dry ingredients, and blend. I use a hand mixer here (since its already dirty from the egg whites), but stop just after all of the major lumps are gone. 
6. With a spatula, fold the egg whites into the batter.
7. Spray your waffle iron with cooking spray (go without if you're brave and your iron is especially new, but mine always stick if I skip this step).
8. Pour batter into the iron, close, and cook until the steaming stops and the waffles are a light golden brown.

Notes:

You don't absolutely need a hand mixer for this recipe, but I hope you have strong wrists. And if all you have is a stand mixer, good luck. My 5-qt Kitchenaid is useless at whisking less than half a dozen egg whites.

If you aren't loading cooked waffles directly onto empty plates, then you may want to let them cool in a single layer on a wire rack before stacking. If you are making a lot of them, heat your oven to 200, put the cooling rack onto a cookie sheet (or re-purpose your broiler pan), and keep your waffles warm in the oven until its time to eat.   If you let them get steamy, then you will have a plate full of soggy odd-shaped pancakes to serve.

If you have extra waffles, put them in plastic bags in the freezer. Pop one or two directly from the freeze into the toaster oven for a quick breakfast. And these are heck of a lot cheaper than the supermarket brands.