Terbo Ted's Waffle Recipe

 

ingredients:

1 cup flour

1 cup other flour

1 stick butter

1 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup sparkling water

3 eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla

 

toppings:

grade A or B pure maple syrup

berries or fruit

whipped cream

 

 

preheat waffle iron to highest setting.

 

put butter in saucepan and melt it exactly 79.255% of the way and add to mixing bowl at
that exact moment; you want to keep some lumpy chunks of butter in your batter so that
there are delightful butter pockets in the finished waffles.  separate egg whites from
egg yolks, add egg yolks to main mixing bowl.  in separate bowl, beat egg whites to stiff
fingerlike peaks or anywhere short of that goal and set aside; you want bubbles. egg
whites are the very last thing to add to the batter; fold in delicately to preserve
foamyness after everything else is mixed.  the other ingredients (except for the
toppings) go into the main mixing bowl in any order before the egg whites.  do not
overmix.

 

cook waffles until timer light goes off on your waffle iron, and let them cook a little
longer.  remove from waffle iron, add 2 sliced half teaspoon-sized chunks of butter to
top of waffle, and put in toaster oven or oven until butter softens and rounds slightly
from its rectangular cut shape, remove before butter melts into puddles or pools and
serve immediately.  top with maple syrup, then fruit, then whipped cream.  eat
immediately.   repeat until full.  don't bother with eggs or bacon or potatoes or grits
or chicken apple sausages or fried chicken or any of that other yummy sounding stuff,
stick to just the fruit and waffles, you and your belly will feel better afterwards, full
of easy to digest energy that won't slow you down.  1 1/2 to 2 waffles per person is
about right.  absolutely do not serve waffles after noon o'clock.

 

 

notes on ingredients and toppings:

 

flour: most good waffle recipes i've studied have a blend of different flours, which
keeps them interesting.  my favorite flours to play with have been millet flour, cake
flour and cornmeal.  cornmeal has crunch; millet flour has mass, and cake flour is light
and fluffy.  too much of any of these isn't necessarily a good thing.  feel free to
experiment with the flour combos, lots of choices here, wander around at the store and
gawk at the labels.

 

baking soda and baking powder: high end waffle recipes call for yeast or buttermilk and
some time for the batter to rise or whatever, and I'm not into that so i don't go there. 
to me, it's important to use both baking powder and baking soda.  some recipes call for
no baking soda, but i don't like that, the waffles taste pasty or doughy to me without
it.

 

butter:  most recipes call for two sticks of butter, or a cup and a half of oil, and that
makes me cringe, I'm not into it.  so i use half of what's recommended usually.  if
you're out of butter feel free to use oil but i prefer butter.  i prefer organic butter;
fats store toxins, right, so i superstitiously choose higher caliber butter.

 

milk/liquids: i prefer organic whole milk.  the 1/4 cup of sparkling water adds bubbles;
i use perrier or pellegrino.  if you're using leftover batter the next day, add a splash
of water so the batter is thinner than it was the first day.  i always intend to use
vanilla rice milk instead of cow milk but never get around to it.

 

eggs: you get what you pay for.  better quality eggs are certainly nicer to work with. 
beating the egg whites really makes the waffles special.  i try to have a guest in my
kitchen beat the egg whites by hand with a wire whisk while i do the rest of the
preparations; it gets their blood going, trips them out on how grueling it is to do by
hand, and makes the payoff of the finished waffles more magnificent.  i'll be heckling
them about needing to use more wrist, less arm, and to go faster while I'm frantically
juggling the other ingredients together.  some people are awful at this task, while some
excel. interesting to watch.  if they do a crappy job it doesn't hurt the waffles, but
glare at them like they might be ruining the whole thing for effect, even if they're
going about it like the Incredible Flash during a guest appearance on a Japanese cooking
show championship.

 

vanilla: good vanilla from a small producer can be an amazing component to your waffles;
i prefer pricey stuff from mexico with labels in spanish; be wary of too much if you've
got the good stuff.  cheap vanilla can be so underwhelming that you might get your guests
suggesting you need to try adding vanilla to your recipe.

 

spices and flavorings: other than small amounts of sugar, salt and vanilla, i don't like
to add other flavorings to the waffles, IMO that stuff goes on top in the toppings.  so
I'm not really big on adding things like chocolate chips or nuts or blueberries to the
waffle batter.  my mind wants to try things like adding zest of lemon or other citrus to
the batter, but i resist.

 

syrup: never put anything with corn syrup on any of your food ever.  maple syrup is the
way to go.  I'm okay with either A or B grade pure maple syrup. warm before serving; i
put my syrup container into a pot of hot tap water while I'm melting the butter, and let
it stand until serving.  cold, molasses like syrup straight out the fridge is no bueno. 
i've experimented with all kinds of other syrup, and it's always the wrong thing to do,
even though things like cherry or blueberry or ginger syrup seem like a good idea at the
store.

 

fruit:  blueberries are my favorite, but blackberries or strawberries are great too. 
whatever you can get your hands on.  use lots.

 

whipped cream:  i like whipped cream in a spray can that's made from something resembling
milk and not polybenzofoamapolystyrate sounding words.  be sure to check the label;
either it's predominantly milk based or chemical based, only get the milk based kind. use
lots, go for it.  okay to substitute yogurty stuff for the whipped cream, but it's way
less fun and weighs down the waffles.

 

 

Backstory:

 

Late fall, 2010, I'd gotten into a habit of waking up before sunrise and going on bike
rides for waffles at either Buttercup Kitchen in Jack London Square or Brown Sugar Cafe
in West Oakland.  Both places serve excellent waffles in the first hour of their
breakfast shifts, before they get too hectic.  Buttercup's waffles are more traditional,
while Brown Sugar Cafe makes an excellent corn meal waffle that's very crispy.  Brown
Sugar cafe is where i got the concept to toast the waffles further after they're done in
the waffle iron, they serve them very browned.  I've never figured out their exact ratio
of cornmeal flour, but i know that making your waffle batter with more than 1/2 cup of
cornmeal flour can be too much; just a dash of it adds the texture. 

 

During this waffle phase- I was going out almost every day- I moved into a place with a
brand new kitchen, and decided that waffles would be my first meal in my new spot.

 

My old heart-shaped waffle iron was broken, I needed a new one.  I wound up getting a
cheap cusinart Belgian Waffle maker.  Works great.  Researched online and then bought in
a big retail store. It was the cheapest one at the store, and not one of the fancy kind
that flips upside down to cook.

 

After all the great waffles at Buttercup and Brown Sugar Kitchen, there's no way I could
just get store bought pancake or waffle mix and satisfy myself with that.  Inspired, I
lay in bed one evening with my iPhone and googled up something like 30 or 40 waffle
recipes.  I started seeing patterns, common to most recipes.  Without even writing
anything down, I just gravitated to easy to remember measurements, and kept making
adjustments with batch after batch of waffles at home until the basic formula was
agreeable.  The two cups flour - 1 1/2 cups milk - 2 eggs - 2 sticks butter ratio seems
to be the most common; mine is different from that slightly, more egg less butter.  As I
said above, I don't use yeast or buttermilk but the baking soda and baking powder option.
 And I don't use oil, only butter, unless I'm out of butter.

 

I'm still in my waffle phase and still making them almost daily for various friends who
stop by.  Still experimenting, adding new touches.  I'm sure this waffle phase will pass;
I'm guessing the coming warm weather will make me lose interest.

 

Theodore Terbolizard

February 1, 2011, West Oakland.

www.terboted.com