Waffles

A lot of people do not realize that waffles aren't just waffles. There is a huge variety of them - it already starts at the shape. Then, there are also several different kinds of dough (e.g. based on yeast, or based on eggs and then full-grain or normal wheat etc.). There are also not just sweet but also savory waffles, just like there are sweet and savory pancakes or cakes in general, I guess.

You can also play around with the baking time of the waffles to make them fluffy or crunchy (if you like them crunchy, I recommend adding more flour or less liquid, this will also help with the time they can keep - less moisture = less likely to go bad).

Waffles with whipped cream

My basic recipe for sweet waffles is as follows:
 

What you need:

250g Butter (or high quality Margarine)
250g Flour
3 Eggs
100g (or more) Sugar
5-10g Vanillin Sugar
250 ml Milk
3 Tbsp Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice

Optional:

2-3 large apples
or
150gr blueberries
or
200gr raspberries
or
150gr chopped chocolate
or
10-20gr cocoa powder

...etc.

Feel free to combine the optional things as well, according to your own taste :)!!

Depending on how much fruit you put into the dough and the size of your waffle maker, it'll yield roughly around 15 waffles.


How to:

(Prepare the fruit [wash, cut] or chocolate [chop] if you want to add any first, for cocoa powder you don't need to do anything in particular).

Separate the eggs. Beat the egg whites first until they are stiff (add 4-5 tablespoons from the sugar sugar as you progress, then the meringue will get a bit stiffer). Set aside for later.

Add butter (margarine) and the remaining sugar and vanilla sugar to the egg yolks along with the juice from the orange. Mix until all the sugar has dissolved. Then start adding the flour and the milk in turns until everything is gone. You can judge yourself how much you want to add from both by checking the dough - it should not be too liquid but also not too dry. If you add more flour the waffles will become harder/crunchier.

Once you're done, fold in the meringue. (Add fruit or chocolate if you want as well, otherwise add it after you've spooned some dough into the waffle maker).

Heat your waffle maker. Depending on what kind of waffle maker you have, the waffles will take between 2-6 minutes to bake.

Heart-Shape (most common here)

I am used to the shape above, the heart-shape or flower-shape. It's most common here. They're pretty thin and only take around 2 minutes to bake (less if you do not put in fruit but depends on how hot your thing gets, you should check from time to time). A good rule of thumb is that as soon as less steam goes up, the waffle is done. You can open the waffle maker and check.

Square-Shape

I think the square shape is most common in other parts of the world and I reckon that this style is called "Belgian Waffles" (although the one above is called Brussels Style Waffles...which is also Belgium?!). The waffle makers are usually larger than the flower-shaped ones and also deeper. So the waffles take longer to bake. These ones in particular took 6-8 minutes but they had apple in them, so that caused the longer baking time.

Ah, the waffles on the first picture were also made using the square shape. You don't have to put dough everywhere so you can make other shapes instead :)

One of my favorite waffle variations was the one that one of my cake-class students made. She added more flour and let them bake for a longer time to make them crispy and in the dough she added "yuzu". I love yuzu, so she already won me over but wah, the taste fit SO WELL!!

For savory waffles you don't add all the sugar of course. Add 1-2 tablespoons for the meringue but not more than that. What I like to do is to add spinach to the dough, which I pulsed through the mixer or something earlier (you can also just cut it up, same with other herbs of choice like basil or even onion) and some bacon and cheese. Tomato also goes with waffles very well.