Merry Christmas!

Since we already had a lovely pancake brunch over at TM's house yesterday, I decided that waffles would make a nice treat for our Christmas morning breakfast. I have lots of waffle recipes already. And I'm sure I could have used one of those. But I've been enjoying churning through the recipes in the various cookbooks we have kicking around, so I decided to peruse those to look for a recipe that I hadn't tried yet.

It turns out that I have a whole waffle cookbook tucked away in the digital collection. Perfect!

I thought about trying to do one of the fancy, flavoured waffles for this. That would have been nice. But I also didn't want to get into doing something too involved, or using up all my time reading recipes and realizing that the morning was half gone before I'd even gotten started. Besides... the Kidlet is a purist; she loves a good, basic, plain waffle. So I figured I'd keep things simple and just cook the very first recipe in the book: just a basic, plain jane, standard reference waffle.

I'm actually quite pleased with how these turned out! I have, historically, not been a huge fan of the results of basic "quick" waffles: made from plain, chemically leavened batters. I find the outsides don't tend to crisp up well -- even in a good waffle iron set to the correct temperature -- and the insides don't tend to have as nice a texture. Yeast-leavened, overnight batters generally give better results in my experience. At least when it comes to plain, unflavoured waffles. Given that, I was not expecting great things from these waffles, but they actually did quite well! The interior was light and fluffy and the exterior was reasonably crisp. I would definitely make these again if I needed a quick waffle fix!

Basic Waffles

Slightly adapted from Waffles: Sweet, Savory, Simple by Dawn Yanagihara

Ingredients

• 280g all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp. sugar
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt, ground
• 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 2 large eggs
• 2 c. milk
• 6 Tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Directions

1. Preheat your waffle iron.
2. Combine the flour, sugar, cornstarch, and salt and sift in the baking powder. Mix well.
3. Beat the eggs with the milk, then beat in the melted butter.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and mix until just combined.
5. Scoop one portion of batter into the preheated waffle iron and cook according to manufacturer's directions. Repeat until all batter has been used.
6. Serve each waffle as it comes out of the waffle iron. If not serving immediately, then place on a wire rack. Waffles may be kept warm in an oven preheated to 110°C (225°F).
7. Serve with your choice of butter, whipped cream, clotted cream, jam, fresh fruit, chocolate, maple syrup, and/or fruit compote(s).