Rourke's Random Musings

I’ve been making waffles at home for a few years and I’ve tried quite a few mixes and recipes. In every case, the waffles came out thicker tasting, cakier,?and not as crisp as I’d like. I wanted?a waffle that had sharp edges. I wanted a waffle that crackled under your fork. Turning the waffle iron all the way up didn’t work. Thinning out the batter and adding butter didn’t work.

Then, two weeks ago, Jen and I had near-perfect waffles at breakfast at the Sunflower Hill Inn in Moab, UT. These waffles were exactly the sort of airy, crispy waffles I’d been trying to make. I asked the folks at the Sunflower for their recipe and I gave it a try as soon as I got home. Be forewarned — this recipe requires you leave some of the stuff overnight. First, the recipe. To make six waffles you’ll need:

• 1 cup of warmed milk
• 1/4 cup of melted butter
• 1/4 cup of warm water
• 1/2 tablespoon of dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon of sugar + 1 pinch
• 1 cup of?AP flour (or 1/2 cup of AP & 1/2 cup of whole wheat)
• 1 egg
• 1/8 teaspoon of baking soda

First, I warmed the milk and added the cut up butter to the milk to melt.

In a separate bowl I sprinkled the yeast into the warm water and added a pinch of sugar to feed the yeast. I put this aside for five minutes so the yeast could fully dissolve.

Next,?I mixed the milk, butter, salt, sugar, flour and the yeast-water and beat until it was smooth. I covered this with plastic and put it in the ‘fridge until morning.

The next morning I started up my waffle iron set to its highest setting. I then?beat the egg and baking soda into the mixture from the refrigerator and stirred until it was all well mixed. I poured the appropriate amount of waffle into the iron and cooked.

My results with this recipe were mixed. As you can see from the picture above, one side came out really well, while the other side looked collapsed and somewhat uncooked. This was true for each and every waffle. At the Sunflower, some of the waffles came out with small sections like this, but none where an entire side looked collapsed. Why did their waffles come out so much better? Perhaps they had a waffle iron that allows you to flip the waffles while they’re cooking. Perhaps my iron is failing on the top side. Either way, this inspired my to go out and get a new waffle iron, so we’ll see how this recipe works with the new iron. More on that in the future.

I?made two versions of the above recipe; one with all purpose flour, and one with 1/2?a cup all purpose and 1/2 a cup whole wheat flower. Both came out the same texture-wise, but both Jen and I preferred the flavor of the waffles with some whole wheat flour.

Both the whole wheat and all-white flour waffles survived the freezer: the morning I made the waffles, I let them?cool and put them into zip-lock bags two at a time and threw them into the freezer. The next morning we pulled a few out and put them directly into the toaster. They were as good, if not better, than they were?the first morning.