Surprisingly not awful "awffles"

Strawberries are out of season right now. So if you use strawberries
on your waffles, they better be from the freezer! If they aren't, I'll
 hunt you down and yell at you!

My son loves all manner of breakfast foods. "Cancakes" are his absolute favorite, followed closely by "awffles". Then "yohgert". When he's all grown up and can say words properly, I know I'm going to miss the way he speaks now. Anyway...back to awffles. I've had some pretty great waffles in my life, but have had a tough time getting them just right when making them at home. I finally found a recipe a few years ago that beats any other that I've ever tried. Then I played around with it and found that I could make 2 different kinds of waffles with 2 simple ingredient switches. The first kind (and my personal favorite) is the light, crisp, airy waffle. The second (and equally delicious) is the slightly dense, moist waffle that is crisp just around the edges. Please don't mistake that for meaning soggy. It's just not as feathery as the original recipe. Without much more ado, here you go!



Affles! (recipe adapted from Fine Cooking)

3/4 C. AP Flour
1/4 C. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
3/4 C. milk
1/4 C. buttermilk
6 Tbsp. veg oil (coconut oil works well, too)
1 large egg, separated
1 Tbsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 150 degrees. Take a cooling rack and put it on a sheet pan. Place this in the oven to stay warm as well. Or, if your oven happens to be spotless, you can place the cooked waffles straight on the rack. The point of this is to keep them warm AND crisp until they are ready to serve. You should also go ahead and preheat your waffle iron while you're mixing up the batter.

In a bowl, mix the flour, cornstarch, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together well. In a separate bowl or large measuring cup, mix the milks, egg yolk, and oil together. Set aside. In yet another bowl, beat the egg white with the sugar and vanilla until the firm peak stage. Gather up all your bowls, make sure you've given your dishwasher a little pep talk, and you can finally make your batter. Mix the milk mixture into the flour, just until the ingredients start to come together. Next, gently fold in the egg white.

Cook the waffles according to the way your temperamental machine will allow you to without scorching the suckers. The recipe suggests about 1/2 C. batter per waffle in a standard waffle iron. I like my waffles about the same color as a pancake- nice and golden. Once each waffle is done, place it in the warm oven on the prepared pan or straight on the rack.

For the more dense and moist version, skip the cornstarch. Use 1 C. of AP flour instead. You should also interchange the milk measurements. Use 3/4 C. of buttermilk and 1/4 C. regular milk.

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I've been absent the last few weeks. I swear I'm not trying to abandon anyone, I just got busy. Life happens. I am already back to writing and have those posts I've been promising nearly ready to go. So please, watch this space!

I would like to thank/blame my friend J**** for this post. While this actually all started during a Facebook conversation, it's so much easier to type out a recipe here than it is with the limited formatting options of a Facebook comment.



Photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle