Here are some waffles Beef and I made for Valentine's day. You can just skip down to the recipe if you like, but some people like a narrative...............
The pictures are meant to give you plating ideas, and to show how easy it is to make pretty waffles, not to make you hungry...sorry.
I did a little research and found that Belgian waffles basically means "waffles", and that there are as many varied recipes as you care to look up. This one is not mine by the way...I took parts from several and brought them together here with I suppose the selling points of mine being they were easy, tasty, and I had all the stuff on hand.
Originally,I wanted to make what they call Liège waffles, named for the city in Belgium from which they, I suppose, originate. Apparently you have to have some sugar pellets which I'm sure you can get off of amazon.com. I imagine you could use rock candy or dig the crystalized bits out of an old brown sugar box, but instead I made a version of the Belgian waffles without the sugar pearls. This recipe called for vanilla sugar, which is made from putting a vanilla bean in some sugar for a while, weeks I think. You can buy it too though, or you can just walk to the cabinet and put vanilla extract in some sugar like I did.
I know that all of these things make subtle differences, but I am just not the kind of person who says, "I'd really like to have waffles in a couple weeks, so maybe I should get on amazon and start ordering loads of shit." If you are, then please invite me over for waffles. These were good anyway, and easy to make on the fly. Two big tricks though: You must have some kind of waffle iron first off, and secondly, this recipe uses yeast and so the dough has to sit for at least an hour...until it doubles in size. So, if like me you wake up in the morning...wander out into the kitchen planning to eat waffles in 15 or 20 minutes you'll be duly pissed. You can make them the night before and have them ready to go or you can get up early, have a snack and call the waffles brunch. Ok here goes.....
3 1/4 cups of flour....I used bread flower, but all purpose is fine I imagine.
One package of dry yeast
4 eggs....I used large eggs.
2 cups of whole milk
8 oz of bubbly mineral water...If you don't have this I'm betting extra milk works fine.
2 sticks of very soft if not slightly melted butter
2 tbsp. of vanilla extract
3/4 cup cane (regular) sugar
1/2 tsp. of salt....two pinches basically
With my iron it made 14 waffles and two were plenty for the average person.
Warm 1 cup of whole milk in a pot...warm not hot! Then put in your pkg of yeast and stir....set it aside for a few minutes to dissolve.
In a large bowl mix dry ingredients...sugar, flour, and salt.
Separate yolks and whites, and beat whites to a stiff foam.
Add butter, yolks and vanilla extract and mix in with the dry ingredients with a cake spatula. (a spoon, will work)
Add the cup of warm yeasty milk and the mineral water, and continue mixing.
Basically at this point you want to make sure everything gets wet, but not soupy...keep the extra milk in reserve if you need more. It should be thick...not so thick as cookie dough, but thicker than cake batter at this point. Take your egg white foam and fold it in without stiring too much. Just roll the spoon or spatula through with a big scoop of the egg stuff on it.....it doesn't have to, and actually shouldn't get mixed in completely, so if you can still see some of the foam here and there it's just fine.
Cover it and let it sit for a minimum of an hour if you're impatient, but something closer to an hour and a half is reasonable...look for it to have doubled in size roughly. You can also leave this overnight.
It will be a gooey mess when it's ready. Don't stir it.
Spray your waffle iron with cooking spray and let it get hot between each set of waffles. Put a scoop in the center....remember bigger isn't necessarliy better here. Batter will spill over the sides and make a mess. Think about one and a half golf balls in volume and vary it from there. I didn't latch the latch on mine because I wanted thick waffles so with the iron hot, I put the blob of sticky dough in the middle and laid the lid down with no pushing at first, then after about 30 seconds I pushed it down a bit, but not all the way. Take them off when they are a little brown....look at pictures of waffles all over the internet for examples of what color they should be, just don't take them off way early. If they are the color of eggos they won't have as much flavor.
We covered them in fresh strawberries and whipped cream, but of course you can do anything. I am not the waffle master so part of this post was in hopes of learning more from other people's waffle experiences. I had an idea for example to put orange oill and coriander in the batter to see if I couldn't make a Blue Moon flavored waffle like a recent pound cake I made. Please post problems or ideas.....Thanks!
Thanks to Brian Bentley for the waffle iron!
One package of dry yeast
4 eggs....I used large eggs.
2 cups of whole milk
8 oz of bubbly mineral water...If you don't have this I'm betting extra milk works fine.
2 sticks of very soft if not slightly melted butter
2 tbsp. of vanilla extract
3/4 cup cane (regular) sugar
1/2 tsp. of salt....two pinches basically
With my iron it made 14 waffles and two were plenty for the average person.
Warm 1 cup of whole milk in a pot...warm not hot! Then put in your pkg of yeast and stir....set it aside for a few minutes to dissolve.
In a large bowl mix dry ingredients...sugar, flour, and salt.
Separate yolks and whites, and beat whites to a stiff foam.
Add butter, yolks and vanilla extract and mix in with the dry ingredients with a cake spatula. (a spoon, will work)
Add the cup of warm yeasty milk and the mineral water, and continue mixing.
Basically at this point you want to make sure everything gets wet, but not soupy...keep the extra milk in reserve if you need more. It should be thick...not so thick as cookie dough, but thicker than cake batter at this point. Take your egg white foam and fold it in without stiring too much. Just roll the spoon or spatula through with a big scoop of the egg stuff on it.....it doesn't have to, and actually shouldn't get mixed in completely, so if you can still see some of the foam here and there it's just fine.
Cover it and let it sit for a minimum of an hour if you're impatient, but something closer to an hour and a half is reasonable...look for it to have doubled in size roughly. You can also leave this overnight.
It will be a gooey mess when it's ready. Don't stir it.
Spray your waffle iron with cooking spray and let it get hot between each set of waffles. Put a scoop in the center....remember bigger isn't necessarliy better here. Batter will spill over the sides and make a mess. Think about one and a half golf balls in volume and vary it from there. I didn't latch the latch on mine because I wanted thick waffles so with the iron hot, I put the blob of sticky dough in the middle and laid the lid down with no pushing at first, then after about 30 seconds I pushed it down a bit, but not all the way. Take them off when they are a little brown....look at pictures of waffles all over the internet for examples of what color they should be, just don't take them off way early. If they are the color of eggos they won't have as much flavor.
We covered them in fresh strawberries and whipped cream, but of course you can do anything. I am not the waffle master so part of this post was in hopes of learning more from other people's waffle experiences. I had an idea for example to put orange oill and coriander in the batter to see if I couldn't make a Blue Moon flavored waffle like a recent pound cake I made. Please post problems or ideas.....Thanks!
Thanks to Brian Bentley for the waffle iron!
