No waffling on waffles
Mother’s Day is perfect time to heat up waffle iron Pineapple-orange compote Crispy cornmeal waffles with pineapple-orange compote
This Mother’s Day, in an era of social distancing even from our children, our family celebration will be virtual. The kitchen table will be set with laptops or tablets for seeing our loved ones living in different states. Of course, we will still talk over each other and tease the husband/father/grandfather. The menu will be the same at all our homes.
Waffles, we agree. Crispy, hot and slathered with fruity goodness. A kitchen filled with sweet aromas.
Oh, and some mimosas — we are drinking more these days. We love a mimosa with fresh grapefruit juice and sparkling rosé wine, but orange juice works, too. Plenty of strong, black coffee for me.
Our daughter and her husband have a waffle iron to make homemade. Perhaps their baby will have her first taste. Our son will likely resort to frozen waffles and the toaster, but make a homemade fruit topping. Note to self: Buy him a waffle iron for his birthday.
We have one electric waffle iron. (Does anyone have more?) I hover over it as the waffle bakes into crispy, brown, crannyfilled sweet treats. We divvy up the squares as the next waffle cooks. For a larger gathering, the wait can feel excruciating. Perhaps there are advantages to cooking for two.
Waffle irons vary in size and shape. The classic waffle iron produces a crispy waffle about
½-inch thick with 1⁄8-inch deep crannies. A Belgian waffle maker has larger, deeper crannies that hold more syrup. Check your manufacturer’s directions for heating the iron, amount of batter to add and cooking times. My classic Black & Decker electric waffle iron bakes a generous cup of batter into four squares in about 10 minutes.
Cooking during a pandemic should be a judgment-free zone. Using a boxed waffle mix is fine — just read labels to avoid artificial ingredients.
If you have the ingredients, know that homemade batter is easy to pull together, and nearly always tastes better. The recipe that follows uses a minimum of leavening for a less metallic-tasting waffle; yogurt adds tang and lightness. I combine the dry ingredients ahead of time, then add the wet ingredients to them while the waffle iron heats.
Cornmeal adds a sweet corn flavor and nice crunch to waffle batter. A fine or medium grind cornmeal works best. (Coarse ground is too crunchy here.) Stoneground blue cornmeal offers a delicious, earthy sweetness and subtle blue hue to the waffles. Whole wheat flour or coarse semolina are other options for yummy flavor and nutty texture.
You can use skim, 1%, 2% or whole milk in the waffle batter. Same for the Greek yogurt — 0% or whole milk yogurt work well here. No plain Greek yogurt? Substitute sour cream or buttermilk (or reconstituted dried buttermilk).
I recommend using vegetable oil suited for high-heat cooking, such as safflower oil, sunflower oil or expeller-pressed canola oil, in the waffle batter and for coating the waffle iron. These oils can take the heat of the waffle iron without smoking, resulting in better-tasting waffles.
Serve the waffles as soon as they are baked; don’t stack them on top of each other for any length of time (unless you’re pouring on the syrup to eat), or they’ll get soggy. If not eating right away, pop them directly onto the rack of a 200 degree oven to stay crisp while you bake more. To make waffles in advance, cool them completely on a wire rack before stacking into a container for refrigeration or freezing. Reheat them to great crispness in a toaster.
Pure maple syrup and salted butter taste delicious on these crunchy waffles, so does a mixture of crushed fresh berries with a fruit syrup. Our family is partial to blueberry syrup from our favorite Michigan blueberry farms. For this holiday, I’m simmering oranges in sugar to soften them before adding diced fresh pineapple and marmalade for a refreshing topping.
Serve the waffles with an interesting flavor of chicken sausage, browned in a skillet until hot, then thinly sliced.
Banana malted milk makes a fine start to any day. I blend in a bit of peanut butter when it’s our sustenance before a morning walk in the woods. If it’s an afternoon treat, I never object to the addition of a scoop of vanilla ice cream, especially on Mother’s Day.