Saturday morning — if the kids have the kitchen clean so I can cook (I need a clean kitchen to cook — doesn’t seem to bother anyone else, but it bother me — need it spotless) — is my morning for making breakfast. Pancakes, crepes, bacon, eggs, waffles, not all at once, but some choices of the above. Yesterday it was waffles. While I was making them I decided to write a blog on waffle-making.
This isn’t going to be a simple, step-by-step instruction on waffle-making. This is going to be an idiosyncratic listing of all the extra and unusual steps, and my reasons for them, in waffle-making.
But first, let me lull you to complacency by listing the ingredients:
1-3/4 Cups Flour
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 Cups Milk
2 Egg Whites
1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
2 Egg Yolks
Now, this recipe calls for three bowls, and we just happen to have a stacked set of three stainless steel bowls. The dry will go in the big, the wet in the middle, and the small is for the egg whites.
After laying out the bowls, the first thing I start with is the eggs. If I am smart enough I have the eggs setting out early, to warm to room temperature — because the egg whites beat better. Which means I did no such thing, but pulled them out right before using them.
Okay, I take three eggs out of the carton — yes, 3 — I like my waffles extra fluffy, so I add an extra egg to the recipe. I divide the eggs — whites in the small bowl, and yolks in the middle bowl. I take our small whisk and beat the eggs whites to a stiff peak. If the boy is assisting me he gets out the hand beater to do this. The beater is a little faster, but I like the softer sound of the whisk, and I think it is more thorough and elegant. When I first started using a whisk a couple of years ago my wrists got tired quickly, and I had to switch hands often, but now I have developed excellent wrist strength and endurance for the task.
Next I move to the egg yolks. I take the whisk, and beat them smooth. The recipe calls for beating in the milk and oil next. I go with the oil first and then the milk. I used to put the milk and oil in together and beat, but I found that the oil always wanted to float on the top, and the eggs wanted to stay on the bottom. It was hard to get them to mix in with the milk. So I measure out the oil with a half-cup measure and beat the oil into the eggs with the whisk until it is one consistent mixture, then slowly add the milk while I am beating. It is amazing how much more the mixture stays a mixture. Oil and water don’t mix — and milk is basically water, But when the oil is in the eggs, it doesn’t separate from the milk.
That said, as far as progression, I add the oil to the yolks, whisk, and then go to the dry mixture. I don’t add the milk immediately.
I take a one cup measure and measure the flour into the large bowl — I don’t bother using precise measuring cups to get the 3/4 cup — I do a guesstimate for the 3/4 cup. I take a Tablespoon and measure the baking powder. For the salt I just pour a guesstimate into my palm and add to the bowl. Then I take a mixing spoon and blend the together.
Now I return to the wet bowl and use the same cup measure I used for the flour to measure the milk — same guesstimate method for the 3/4 cup, whisking as I slowly pour the milk into the egg/oil mixture.
Here is a place for an aside. My sister is very insistent that certain measuring cups are for dry, others for liquid. I have my glass cups for liquids and my dry cup measures in the cupboard. But I don’t see the need to use twice as many cups, and have to wash twice as many implements. So I always do my dry steps first, when possible, and then reuse the same implements for the wet, and save on my cleanup time. A cup is a cup is a cup, after all.
Once the wet is done, I pour it into the dry mixture and use the mixing spoon to blend them together. The recipe warns to not stir too vigorously — I think it doesn’t want you to overactive the baking powder too soon — but my chief concern is to mix vigorously enough that there are no dry lumps.
It is the next stage, the folding in of the egg whites, that I take the gentleness seriously. I use a gentle folding method with the mixing spoon to get the full fluffiness of the whites (extra egg white — remember) into the rest of the batter. It gets visibly puffed as I fold in the egg whites completely.
We have an electric waffle iron with two rectangular waffle spaces on it. I have learned that a 1/4 cup of batter will fill each side. So I use a 1/4 cup measure to fill each side of the waffle iron, and then put the 1/4 cup measure into the small mixing bowl between measurings. If you put the measuring cup in the large bowl with the batter it gets lost in the batter, and you have to put it in/on something because it drips all over the counter otherwise. At the end of the batter I usually have enough drippings in the small bowl to complete an entire waffle, which I get out of the bowl with a plastic scraper — I clean the big bowl out the same way, and even scrape the last batter out of the measuring cup with the scraper to bake it all up.
At the beginning, people are usually waiting in line for the waffles to come off the iron. But about midway the waffles start coming out faster than our family eats them. I learned early on that you don’t stack waffles the same way you do pancakes. The heat and steam of the waffles softens them enough that they start flattening and you lose the whole fluffy waffle feel that you were going for with the egg whites. So I get out the cooling rack and spread them out individually to cool and stay fluffy.
Most of the time the boy eats all the waffles throughout the rest of the day. But if there are some left, I stick the cooling rack into the freezer to freeze them, and then bag them. They work just fine in the toaster to reheat and eat — same as if you had bought frozen waffles in the store.
So, I am certain there are many more better cooks than I out there. Do any of you see anything I do that you think is just the wrong way to do something? Is there anything you see as a new idea that you think is great? Do you have any additional tips for waffle-making? What do you think about wet versus dry measuring implements?
At The Rainbow 