AND a few lessons on making waffles!
Everyone LOVES waffles. Yeah, pancakes are great but waffles are so much more. They can be a breakfast OR a dessert depending on what you top them with. My personal favorite is ice cream, strawberry topping and whipped cream.
This year, I opted to change out our family's Christmas schedule. Being a "divorced family" kinda sucks around the holidays. My ex and I had worked out a "schedule" on who got the kids on Christmas morning and quite frankly it SUCKED. On the years it was MY year to have the boys on Christmas morning(this was MY year) I would have to have them open presents and then whisk them away to their father's for noon. This left them no time to play with the presents they just opened and they would be at their dad's for days afterward. Not much fun for Xmas.
SO seeing how my sister did her Christmas on Christmas Eve so her kids could go to their dad's big family gathering they have every Xmas morning, I opted for the same. I got the kids on board with it pretty easily. They were excited about not having to be shuffled around on Christmas day like "commodities" and being able to relax after opening their presents. I told them that we'd have a special Christmas Breakfast and go to the movies to see It's a Wonderful Life. Of course, we'd finish off the day at my Dad #2's for our annual family Christmas Eve party. They were quite excited and my oldest(15 year old) boy said "Let's have waffles for breakfast."
My answer was "We don't own a waffle maker and I'm not having crappy boxed waffles for a special breakfast"
In his "infinite wisdom" my oldest answers "Well, we could get you a waffle maker for Christmas."
I turned to him in the middle of a produce department in the grocery store and said very loudly "I'm going to give you some very important advice that will come in handy when you are married child. Do not ever, EVER buy a woman an appliance for Christmas unless she SPECIFICALLY asks for it boy. NOT EVER". LOL! 3 of the women who overheard this looked up from their produce picking and gave me a sly smile and nodded in agreement. LOL!
That very night someone on our local freecycle group offered up a waffle maker. It was serendipitous!
SO, waffle maker in hand this Christmas morning(Christmas Eve) I set out to make my very first batch of waffles. I learned a good amount of lessons along the way that I'll share with you after the recipe.
I did not tell my family that it was gluten free, just as I normally do when I make a new recipe, because I want them to taste it and tell me if they love it and not LOOK for something to be wrong with it. When I told my fiance afterward that they were he said "WOW, those were really good for being Gluten Free!" So trust me, no one noticed the difference here!
I modified this recipe from the recipe on AllRecipes.com I changed some things according to the suggestions in the reviews and made it Gluten Free.
2 Large Eggs
2 cups Bob's Red Mill Gluten Free All Purpose Flour(Or your preference of Gluten free AP Flour)
1 3/4 cups of Almond Milk
1/2 Cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil(or your own personal oil of choice)
3 Tablespoons of White Sugar
4 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
1/4 Teaspoon of Salt
1/2 teaspoons of Vanilla Extract
1/2 Teaspoon of Cinnamon
1/2 Dash of Nutmeg
Once you've gathered all your ingredients and your ready to start, THEN plug your waffle iron in to heat up. I plugged mine in first thinking it was going to take a long time. The older ones may but mine heated up QUICK. So don't waste electricity and give yourself a change to burn yourself on yours. Wait til everything is gathered up and ready to mix, then turn yours on.
Crack your eggs into a bowl and beat them until fluffy. I used my hand mixer instead of my Kitchen Aide because as much as I LOVE my Kitchen Aide, some jobs just don't need that big ole thing. Some people suggested separating out the whites and beating them separately. I just beat them all together. I'll try the other way later and see if it makes any kind of difference.
Once your eggs are fluffy, add in all the other ingredients and mix until well blended.
Then you're ready to pour into your waffle iron. Pour into your iron and follow the directions in the manual for your own personal iron.
Now come the lessons!!!
Lesson #1. - Do yourself a favor and POUR SPARINGLY! I used a 1/2 cup measuring cup the first time and made sure the bottom of the the waffle iron was completely covered in waffle batter. As soon as I pulled the top down, it leaked out all over my counter!! Trust me, on waffles less is more!! I quickly learned I needed somewhere between 1/8 and 1/4 of a cup per each square section. I covered the bottom until just a few of the small squares on the outside edges of the waffles were still exposed. This caused a lot less leakage. Yes, some of my waffles had holes through them but that's ok. See Lesson #4 for that.
Lesson #2 - ONLY MAKE ONE BATCH! The original recipe says it makes 6 servings. I currently have about a dozen waffles left over after making a double batch for my first try. TRUST ME you don't need a double batch if you have a "normal size family". The four of us had breakfast yesterday, my fiance and I had breakfast today and I still have over a dozen waffles to freeze! Yes it's great because my kids loved these and so did my fiance but it was kinda overkill.
Lesson #3 - Know if your waffle iron is non-stick. If it's not use some kind of spray oil. Having gotten mine for free it did not come with the manual and I kept forgetting to look it up myself. So I didn't know if mine was non-stick. I don't like using commercial spray oils. So I opted to use a paper towel covered in coconut oil the first time around. Worked ok but it was a pain in the rear. After that I put some EVOO into a spray bottle and sprayed it on. This morning on my second try, I realized the surface was non-stick and I gave up all that nonsense. LOL!
Lesson #4 - Your waffles WILL NOT look like the ones that come out of the box from the store. I don't know what I was thinking but I had visions of "perfect homemade waffles". Bwahahahahahaha!!! Yeah NO. Without a big mess and a lot of waste you aren't making perfect waffles with no holes. It's just not happening. I made my peace with that when my kids and fiance DEVOURED what I made.
THIS is what my waffles ACTUALLY looked like! So yeah, don't expect perfection. LOL!
All in all I can't complain. It was an awesome experience for my kids. I believe it will be something we will do every year from now on.
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