First Waffles of Christmas!

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Christmas gift: WaringPro Waffler

I got a new waffle iron for Christmas, and today was the day to try it out. We wore out the hinge on our last waffler. :) I'd been using Krustease pancake mix, which is very easy, especially for the kids. We were out of that, though, and it was time to find a better recipe.

I decided to try Food Network's Waffle of Insane Greatness, which was courtesy of Aretha Frankensteins, Show: $40 a Day Episode: Chattanooga, TN

The waffles were great! The outside had a crispy crunch, inside was creamy, overall they were light and wonderful. The first waffle was actually a tad lighter brown than the rest, but was still good. They were flavorful and delicious. We forgot to use butter, just added a light drizzling of real maple syrup, it didn't take much, didn't need anything more.

First waffle of Christmas! :)

The recipe is also pretty simple, not requiring anything fancy like separating eggs and beating the whites. Between this and the pancake recipe I found earlier, we will not be buying any more mix.

As is often the case, the recipe leaves a lot of room for interpretation, leading to a lot of variation in the results. Here is more specifically what I did.

I doubled the ingredients, and rounded up the vanilla, because it's really hard to use too much vanilla. I weighed the flour and corn starch, which I find makes it easier and more consistent. This makes six waffles on my new Waring Pro waffler. Here's just the recipe; any future updates will show up in that version, and may not be reflected here.

Ingredients   

• 1 1/2 cup (7 ½ oz) all-purpose flour (King Arthur)
• 1/2 cup (2 ½ oz) cornstarch
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cup whole buttermilk
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Butter and syrup, for serving (we skipped butter and used real Maple syrup)   

Directions   

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt; whisk together well. In a four-cup measure, combine the milk, vegetable oil, egg and vanilla and whisk until well blended. The oil and eggs blend right in with the buttermilk. 

If you don't have buttermilk, go buy some, preferably the whole-milk variety. If you MUST substitute, mix 2 cups milk with 2 tablespoons white vinegar, and let set up for five minutes. I haven't tried the substitution, but I think you will miss out on the flavor. People who reported the batter as thin, and the waffles as lacking flavor, probably didn't use buttermilk, used a weaker flour, and didn't brown them up enough.

UPDATE: I made these again, ran out of buttermilk, and did the vinegar/milk substitution. The batter was thinner, and while still good, they were not as outstanding as they were with the buttermilk.

Add liquid to dry, and mix until well blended with small lumps. I started with a rubber spatula, and thought it was too lumpy, so switched to a dough whisk, which worked nicely. A small whisk, as in the photo below, would probably get clogged with the batter. Don't work it too hard, don't want to get the gluten developed.  My batter had small lumps.

Let the batter sit for 30 minutes. This is an important step, allowing the flour to wet more thoroughly, thickening the batter some too. Start your iron heating while the batter rests.

Wet ingredients bowl.

Batter with dough whisk, ready to rest.

       
Preheat a waffle iron to ~388°. Waffles are done when the iron comes back to 365-370°F. I found the temperature recommendation from this article, which I need to research in more detail in the future. :) An IR temperature gun is highly useful here. Without one, you will have to experiment to find the ideal setting. 

I found that setting my waffler to "5" worked just right. Ideally, the iron would maintain a temperature of 365-370°F, but most will cool off when the batter hits them, and then come back up to heat. When mine indicated the waffle was done, I rolled the iron over, gave it about 30 more seconds, opened the iron and found the temperature was close to 370°, so it worked well.

My iron came with a measuring cup, and instructed to fill it to the top for thick batter, and to the fill like for thin batter. I filled the first one to the top, and as you can see, it overflowed. After that, I went for the fill line, and poured in as much as would pour unassisted, and it worked well, making a nice even six waffles with no batter left over.

Do not use non-stick spray on the waffle iron; the oil in the batter will allow the waffle to release easily. Serve immediately with butter and syrup. Since my iron had never been used, I did spray it once after the iron was hot.

Overfilled iron, overflowed.

The last waffle quarter, almost eaten before I could take the photo.