How to Make Waffles

Eric: Hey everyone! Today on Gardenfork we are going to make waffles. I always like waffles, and when we drive by a waffle house, I always want to stop. But I have never really made them at home. I remember when we were kids, my parents had a waffle maker, it was like one of those electric West Bend ones. It always kind of overflowed and was really sticky and messy, it didn't seem to work very well. So I, being a lover of cast iron, I saw some antique waffle irons on a show or something, so I went online and I found a camping store that sells brand new cast iron waffle irons. So there you have it. It looks like this thing here. We will take a shot at that. It was really inexpensive, so I thought, if it's raining out, it's like raining two inches an hour or something out there, so I thought we will try and make waffles. Alright. So this is really easy to do. So I did a little research, and I can give you some history of waffles. So this is our cast iron waffle maker. It opens like this. Very nice! It's been seasoned, I seasoned it in the fireplace. So just cover that with oil, put it in the fire. So there you go. So you season your cast iron, and the outside of it is going to look kind of cruddy, but that's fine, you can oil the outsides, I don't. And this goes on your stove's top, and you put some batter in there, and you close it up, and then there you go. So the first thing you want to do is -- the secret to what makes a waffle a waffle is that you separate out the egg whites and you fluff those up and you add those in at the last minute into the batter. Then it makes them puffy. And I have got some really nice eggs; we have got some eggs from Wendy, Wendy over at the bakery. She has got some really beautiful, kind of blue, green ones here, which I really like. Those are very nice. So we are going to separate out three eggs; wow, these are giants, let's use these, let's use the giant eggs. Alright. Giant yokes. So you just toss this back and forth to separate the white. I like to make things with buttermilk instead of milk. It gives a little bit more of a tang. If you don't have buttermilk, you can use regular milk, or you can add a little vinegar to your milk. I can't remember what it does, but it makes it kind of butter milky. Of course, if you go to the Greenhouse, I will post the recipe on how to make fake buttermilk. So we are going to mix this together. I am putting in one and a half cups. This pancake and waffle cake recipes, they kind of go up and down. If I say one-and-a-half cups, you might find that that's not thick enough, and you want to put a little bit more in or a little bit less buttermilk. So that's up to you. Two teaspoons of baking powder. Check the expiration date on your baking powder, because I just did and realized that the baking powder we had was three months expired. This is our sugar, its been exposed to some moisture, I think. That's solid sugar. Female Speaker: It's a cube. Eric: It's a cube of sugar. I need a tablespoon of this, so maybe I will -- . Female Speaker: You are not supposed to do that. Eric: I forgot, we should preheat the cast iron waffle maker. I mean, if you have a electric one, you should plug it in ahead of time, so I forgot. And there, it will warm up. So we are going to mix in the dry ingredients, just mix them into our buttermilk, egg yolk. Don't over stir it. So after you have mixed the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients; you should have put the vanilla in ahead of time, just a little bit of oil. Waffles were invented in the Medieval times, about the 14 Century. They were brought over to the Americas by the pilgrims, of all people, and also Thomas Jefferson, when he was in France, he brought back a waffle iron, and then evidently in high society of Thomas Jefferson's age, they would have waffle parties. And the difference between regular American waffles and Belgian waffles is that, Belgian waffles are yeast-based and American waffles use baking powder, like a lemon. I bet you didn't know that. You learned that today at Gardenfork, remember that. What did I forget? Female Speaker: Surely something. Eric: So when you whisk egg whites, you can do one of two things. You can use my favorite tool, the fork, or you can use a whisk. So I am going to use a whisk this time. So you want to beat these until they form what are called peaks. Female Speaker: How is it going? Eric: It takes a while. You could also do this with an electric mixer. Mine is down in the basement. So these are peaked now. So you want to fold these very gently into your batter, because these have a bunch of air bubbles in them, and you want to keep those air bubbles in there. So don't beat it up too much, right? So this goes into here. Here we go. I have never done this before. I season the cast iron in the fireplace and the oil kind of burnt a bit, so the first one we make is probably going to have some black junk on it. So don't be alarmed, it's just junk. Now, you have got to take some cooking spray. Oh, that's great. And we take some of this, and then we close this and we wait. Female Speaker: And we set the timer? Eric: I guess we could time it. I don't know, I don't think it's going to take too long. But what's really cool about this is that you just take this thing and you lift it up, and you turn it, and you put it back down, like that. Okay. I think it's done. So we are going to pop this thing off of here. Wow! Look at that! You can also put some butter in this, but I don't think for this one it's really necessary. I like the syrup. It's a little overdone, but that's really quite good, and it was really easy to do. And you don't have to go out to a restaurant or a store, you can make all this yourself. I will just have some more. It's really light. You can taste vanilla and the -- Female Speaker: Butter milk? Eric: The butter milk, just a little tang. Female Speaker: You skip the utensil. Eric: We are supposed to go to dinner at my neighbor's house, so I can't eat all of this. Let's put the ultimate test, the Labrador retrieval test. Alright, the ultimate taste test here. Female Speaker: What do you think guys? A review please. Eric: Their tails are wagging, so that's a good thing. Yeah, is that good? Alright. So there you go, very easy to make, very simple. You can get a electric waffle iron or get your cast iron waffle maker. I will put on the Greenhouse a link to the place where I bought mine; it was like $25, it was very inexpensive. Now he likes waffles. Female Speaker: You have a fan. Eric: Alright. Tell your friends about the show, come to the Greenhouse, and have a good day. Enjoy your breakfast. Enjoy your waffles.