Is brunch after 12 o’clock still brunch? Are waffles appropriate at 2pm? These are the kind of pressing issues, Shannon and I face on a Sunday.
After planning a waffle brunch with Shannon’s mom and sister, we figured 11am would be a good time to start feasting on waffles. We figured wrong. As I was perusing waffle recipes around 9:30am, I received a Snapchat from Shan’s mom showcasing her “Fresh berry breakfast”, and I was a little concerned about our future waffle plans. This concern grew as Shan texted me from upstairs:
“Guess whaaat?”.
Your family can’t make it for brunch?
No! I wanted to make waffles!
Fortunately, it was just our 11am waffle plans being postponed to “around 1:30”. Our waffle brunch, soon became waffle lunch. We adjusted our plans, made some breakfast, and settled on a waffle recipe from the Joy of Cooking (shout out to Ross & Celeste for the cookbook!). The waffles came out light and fluffy, nicely browned, and not overly sweet.
- 3 cups warm milk (105°-115°F)
- 1 envelope (2¼ tsp) active dry yeast
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter (room temp)
- ½ cup sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1½ tsp salt
- 4 cups (520 grams) all-purpose flour
- 3 egg whites
- Powder sugar
- In a large bowl, add active dry yeast and milk. Let stand minutes, then whisk until combined.
- Add butter, sugar, egg yolk, vanilla, and salt into milk and yeast mixture, whisking until combined.
- Once combined, add flour, mixing until smooth. Let rest at room temperature for about 1 to 1.5 hours, until batter has roughly doubled in size.
- Once risen, beat egg whites until you achieve soft peaks, then fold into the batter.
- Preheat waffle iron.
- Add the appropriate amount of batter (our waffle maker took about a cup of batter), cooking waffles until browned to your liking.
- Once the waffle are cooked, steam should no longer be coming out of the waffle, and it should easily release from the waffle iron.
- Store cooked waffles in the oven, directly on the rack, at 200°F, while making the rest of the waffles.
- Serve waffles with your choice of powdered sugar, fresh fruit, whipped cream, or maple syrup.
Recipe from the Joy of Cooking.
Now I just need to figure out what to do with the 6 leftover waffles in my freezer. Chicken and waffle sandwiches? Waffle BLT’s? Just eat them like normal? So many options, but I feel like you may find a future waffle sandwich post here!
Bob
