Sunday mornings around here are usually an occasion for lingering over breakfast and the newspaper. S is a great breakfast chef and always makes something delicious; flipping pancakes or scrambling eggs to the strains of our favorite Sunday tunes: Charlie Haden and Hank Jones’s album Steal Away: Spirituals, Hymns and Folk Songs.
To celebrate that impulse (and because our old one has recently been retired to the garage) I got S a new waffle maker for Valentine’s Day.
So, of course, we had waffles. S used the recipe for Buttermilk Waffles that came with the waffle maker (his extensive collection of breakfast cookbooks is currently buried in a pile of other cookbooks as a part of our preparation for some home repairs) and they turned out perfectly.
Buttermilk Waffles
(the Williams-Sonoma Kitchen / All-Clad recipe)
Makes 8 waffles
3 eggs, separated
1 ¾ cups buttermilk
8 tbs unsalted butter, melted
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 ¾ cups all purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1/3 cup sugar
Preheat a waffle maker on medium high heat.
We just eat them as they are ready; but if you plan to make all the waffles before serving any, preheat the oven to 200 F.
In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks, then whisk in the buttermilk, butter and vanilla until blended.
Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Add the flour mixture to the egg mixture and whisk until smooth.
In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Fold 1 cup of the egg whites into the batter, then carefully fold in the remaining whites.
Pour about 2/3 cup batter into the center of your hot waffle maker and close the lid. Cook until golden brown and crisp, 4-5 minutes (or until the waffle maker cheeps at you!).
Serve immediately with warm maple syrup, or place on a wire rack in the oven and keep warm until ready to serve. Repeat with remaining batter.
All that butter probably helps them develop that perfectly crisp exterior. S also thinks that beating the egg whites makes a big difference.
Whatever the reason, they were good to the last bite!
knitting a life 
The waffles look like they turned out great. Do you like the new appliance? Nice pics, as usual! Miss you….
Love the new waffle maker. It’s a lot nicer than the old one. It even has an adjustable temperature setting. Miss you, too!
😀 mommy made us pancakes;but those look pretty darn good. nice pictures :]
yummy! i love buttermilk-y things…happy valentine’s day!
So, you’re saying they are better than the ones I make in the toaster? True, I have to get a new toaster every time the batter explodes the last one..
[…] he starts cooking he puts Steal Away by Charlie Haden on the stereo (I know I have told you that before) and the mellow tunes and fragrant smells usually draw me out of bed, ready to […]