Lemonade griddle pan waffles

When I was last in New York, we had supper at Sweet Chick on the Lower East Side. Accompanying my fried chicken was a pile of waffles with a pale yellow butter gently melting, threatening to tumble over the cliff of pillowy triangles. That butter, sweetened with icing sugar and spiked with lemon and rosemary, was beautiful. This was a recipe I wrote immediately on my return.

SERVES 4

PREPARATION TIME 20 minutes COOKING TIME 10 minutes

FOR THE WAFFLE BATTER

250g self-raising flour 5g bicarbonate of soda

10g caster sugar

5g salt

175ml cloudy lemonade 200ml whole milk

2 large eggs

Spray oil, to grease

FOR THE LEMON AND ROSEMARY BUTTER

125g unsalted butter, at room temperature

Zest 1 lemon

½tbsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped

2tbsp icing sugar, plus extra to dust

1 Preheat a griddle pan over low-medium heat – this seems a little premature, but if your griddle pan is anything like mine, it takes a good while to heat up.

2 For the batter, simply toss together the flour, bicarb, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl – it helps to give it all a whisk to blend everything together. In a jug, beat together the lemonade, milk and eggs until well mixed. Whisking the dry ingredients well and constantly, pour a little of the liquid ingredients into the bowl – it’s far easier to get any lumps out while the batter is still fairly thick, so work at it before adding all of the liquid. Once you have a smooth batter, stop mixing – you don’t want to break down the proteins in the flour, as these cause gluten to form, and then your waffle will be tough and chewy rather than

fluffy and tender. Let the batter rest while you make the butter.

3 Put the ingredients for the butter into a bowl and beat until pale and fluffy.

4 Spray the griddle pan with oil – or pour oil into it and carefully wipe around the pan with some kitchen paper. Add the batter to the pan and allow it to fry for 6min, until most of the batter is fairly set and there are lots of pinprick bubbles on top of the waffle.

5 Time to flip. I find the easiest way is to slide the waffle on to a plate or chopping board, invert the pan over the top, then flip pan and plate together so the waffle falls back into the pan, uncooked side down. Fry for a further 4min, until bouncy and set all the way through.

6 Divide the waffle into 4 and serve on plates with a generous knob of the lemon and rosemary butter on top. Dust with extra icing sugar.