The waffle experiments – Part 2

November 9, 2009 at 7:48 pm (Breakfast Goodies)

Pumpkin Waffles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This morning I excitedly went to my cupboards. It was time to ignore the “use by” date and grab that old can of pumpkin that had been sitting there longer than I care to admit and try another round of pancake batter as waffles. I used this pancake recipe that I absolutely love for pumpkin pancakes.

The pumpkin pancake batter was really good as waffles, but I have to admit, my initial enthusiasm from a few days ago is beginning to falter. The batter for these pancakes is thicker than I remembered. As a matter of fact, it is nearly as thick as the waffle recipes I was complaining about. It all started to come back to me. The texture of these pancakes is similar to a ricotta cheese pancake although there is no cheese in them. The texture is caused by the fact that the batter contains very little oil but a lot of moisture from the vegetable puree. This moisture, seems to be trapped in the puree and doesn’t cook off when you use a waffle iron. The batter was difficult to work with as it had a tendency to adhere itself to the waffle iron, making these very difficult to remove from the appliance. I also had to cook these at a lower temperature than the last couple of batches of waffles. The first waffle was a disaster! Overcooked and torn apart from the roughing up I had to give it to extricate it from the waffle iron.

If you decide to try these waffles, and don’t get me wrong, you should (the flavor makes up for the difficulties). Cook them on medium heat and use plenty of melted butter on your waffle iron. But be prepared. Despite my use of copious amounts of butter on the waffle iron, these waffles aren’t crispy edged. They are soft and cake like. The flavor is a bit like pumpkin spice bread, only not very sweet. But that’s what maple syrup is for, right?

So what is my take on this experience? Some pancakes are waffles. I suspect that my cornmeal and oatmeal pancakes will be inappropriate as waffles although I may try to find out anyway. :wink: That is the fun of getting into the kitchen to experiment! At this point, I think the best pancakes for waffles are the ones that make the flattest thinnest pancakes. If it is a pancake that could double as a crepe, toss that batter in the waffle iron instead because I bet you’ll end up with little bit of heaven on your plate.

5 Comments

Soylent Green is… people!!!!!!!!

November 7, 2009 at 6:51 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Recipes, Sourdough)

Aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!! Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

No, no, no! I mean… pancakes are waffles. That’s it…pancakes are waffles. Phew! I’m so relieved! I bet you are too.

See:

Wheat and Rice Waffle

That is a waffle made with my wonderful wheat and rice cakes recipe. It is featured here with fresh pineapple, yogurt and real maple syrup!

Now I know that you are all way more savvy than I am, and you probably have figured out the whole pancakes are waffles thing a long time ago, but here is why I was so confused. Every recipe I have tried for waffles makes a really thick batter. So thick that my waffles always came sort of soft and soggy. Not like the crispy waffles you get at the local diner. Even the sourdough waffle recipe I tried suffered from thick batteritis. Since the batter was always really thick, I thought that waffle batter had to be thicker than pancake batter. It also seemed to me that the waffle batter had way more fat and sugar in it. To add to my confusion, I remember seeing a Good Eats episode on Food Network where Alton Brown explained the importance of plenty of fat and sugar in waffle batter.

I have to thank my best friend R. for showing me the way to good waffles. We were talking and she mentioned that she made some “kick ass” sourdough waffles. I asked for the recipe and she sent me an email entitled “fabulous waffles” which contained a recipe that would change my concept of waffles. You make a sponge the night before with your sourdough. The next day you are supposed to remove ½ cup of the sponge and save it as your next sourdough project. R. does not. She just adds the rest of the ingredients and gets an extra waffle out of the deal. The batter was super wet. Even a little wetter than some of my pancake batters. The waffle iron has to be really hot so that it can steam out all of that liquid but then, you are left with waffles that have a crisp exterior and a soft center. Just perfect. These waffles were an epiphany for me.

After making sourdough pizza last night, I meant to start a sponge for sourdough waffles for this morning and I forgot. We still wanted (no, needed) waffles this morning and I had a lot of buttermilk leftover from something I made last week, so I decided to make my wheat and rice pancake recipe and try it out as waffles. I made the waffle iron nice and hot and they came out perfect. The flavor and texture were wonderful. Now I want to try all of my pancake recipes as waffles.

Here is a list of possible candidates if you want to experiment with me:

Blueberry corn cakes (although this is a thick batter so it may be problematic)

Carrot cake pancakes

Oatmeal pancakes (again, these could be way too thick)

Orange sourdough pancakes

Pumpkin pancakes

And…I have an amazing recipe for gingerbread pancakes that I haven’t made in a long time and I have yet to blog about, but those gingerbread pancakes would make really interesting waffles. Let me know if you have any other great pancake recipes to try out as waffles.

Here is the recipe for those amazing Sourdough Waffles. My friend got them from a web site somewhere that credited them to Theresa B. by way of South shore B and B in Alaska. Here is my interpretation of R’s version of the waffles:

½ cup active sourdough starter

2 tbsp sugar

2 cups warm water

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2 eggs, beaten

1 tsp salt

3 tbsp canola oil

1 tsp baking soda

The night before, mix starter, sugar, water and pastry flour in a large bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and leave out overnight.

The next morning, mix in eggs, salt oil and baking soda. Allow the mixture at least 5 minutes to rise.

Preheat your waffle iron to one of the hottest settings. Cook waffles according to your waffle iron’s instructions.

Waffles can be kept in a warm oven as they are cooked so that all waffles will be warm when you serve them.

7 Comments

The sourdough madness continues!

August 11, 2009 at 10:36 pm (Baking, Breakfast Goodies, Recipes, Snacks, Sourdough)

CherryCoffeeCake1

Sometimes I feel like I am on the brink of sourdough madness. I am a bit obsessed. This week, however, I feel a lot better about myself. I stumbled onto a couple of recipes that put things into perspective for me. I can still call myself an avid hobbyist baker. I am not yet mad. I have not yet used sourdough as a batter for frying red meat. I have not yet put strange vegetables in my bread. I’m all right.
 
Things started quite innocently this week with a conversation with my best friend. I had emailed her to say thank you for sending me two gorgeous, scrumptious jars of homemade jam. One peach the other blueberry. She emailed me back and asked me if I saw the plum kuchen in this month’s Gourmet magazine and could it be made with sourdough. Well of course I noticed the plum kutchen in all of it’s beauty and glory. I noticed it again when it appeared with an even prettier photo on Smitten Kitchen. I did of course think I’d like to make it with sourdough.
 
I’ve been baking with my sourdough for a couple of years now but I had yet to try to make a cake. I first noticed sourdough cake when thumbing through the Joy of Cooking and have always had it in the back of my mind to bake a cake someday. Since I have no experience baking any cake with sourdough, I emailed my friend back that one of us would need to try it and report back. (I’m a coward, I know!). It was my first impulse to shy away from converting that recipe to sourdough because I have no understanding of how sourdough works in baked goods other than bread.
 
Today that changed for me. Instead of doing responsible adult things, I started to obsess about that kuchen and wonder what the heck yeast does in cakes. My research did not come up with an easy answer so I started looking at recipes. A particular recipe caught my eye because all of the ingredients or some reasonable substitutions were available here at home. I would just have to bake something and see what I think sourdough does in the recipe.
 
The recipe I chose for cherry sourdough coffee cake looked good but there were a couple of changes I made. Here’s why: the normal thing to do in any cake recipe I’ve baked in the past is to cream the sugar and butter. This results in a nice fluffy cake. The baker who created the recipe has you mix together all the dry ingredients and cut the butter into the mixture like you are making pie. Normally I wouldn’t agree with this but it was too late. I had already mixed the dry ingredients before I realized what I was being instructed to do. Once I mixed the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, I had a dough not a batter. This may be correct but it could be an inconsistency that happened due to our starters? As far as I can tell we both use 100% hydration starters but I panicked and added a quarter cup of milk to thin things out a little. I used sweet cherries not tart cherries so my filling was sweeter than it should have been. I used more cherries because I love them and 1 ½ cups just didn’t seem like enough.
 
I felt a bit of apprehension about this cake as I put it in the oven. I felt like I had uneven cake layers (too much batter on bottom, not enough on top). I tried to spread the top layer of batter over the cherries and the fruit bled into the batter. I was happy to realize that the crumble topping would cover things up well. I still felt odd about the addition of milk to the dough to change it into a thick batter. My apprehension cleared when I got a whiff of an exquisite smell coming from my oven a few minutes later. I went to peek at it and the flat looking bit of batter in the pan had puffed up tall. It was so pretty!

When I finally had a chance to taste the cake after lunch, I did taste a bit of a yeast flavor on the first bite. My boyfriend tasted it to.  He wasn‘t sure if he liked it at first. The next bite for both of us was cake, and what a cake! The texture is soft and fluffy. The flavor is sweet with hints of vanilla. The layers of textures from silky soft, to gooey fruit to crunchy topping were fabulous.

So. I think I will have to try a few more cakes and muffins to really analyze what is going on here, but I think the starter worked as a dough conditioner. I used unbleached white flour for this cake, but it came out silky like I had used cake flour. The rise on this cake was crazy. I think the yeast helped in that regard. As for that malted yeasty flavor, we got a hit of on the first bite but then it went away as we kept eating and tasting. Now that I think about it, that could be why I see so many recipes for chocolate sourdough cake. It could be it works better with stronger flavors. But…don’t let the idea that the cake has a yeasty flavor deter you. This cake was wonderful. Please make it for someone you love today.

I am submitting this coffeecake to YeastSpotting on Wild Yeast. Click here to see what other delicious things were baked up this week.

 

 

 

 

 

CherryCoffeeCake2

Cherry sourdough coffee cake
Adapted from this recipe by Nancerose on grouprecipes.com
 
Cake:
 
1 ½ cups unbleached white flour
 
 ½ cup evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ cup unsalted butter

½ cup sourdough starter (mine was fed the night before)

1 large egg, beaten

1 tsp vanilla extract

¼ cup milk (I used nonfat, any kind should work)

Filling:

2 cups frozen sweet cherries

1 tbsp lime or lemon juice

½ cup evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar

2 tbsp corn starch

Topping:

1/3 cup rolled oats

¼ cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup chopped pecans

3 tbsp unbleached white flour

¼ cup unsalted butter

Filling:

In a medium saucepan, pour in the frozen cherries and cook on high heat until they defrost and begin to boil, about 5 -7 minutes. Lower to a simmer. Add lime or lemon juice. Mix together the sugar and cornstarch. Stir the sugar mixture into the cherry mixture and continue to simmer for 2 or 3 minutes until the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and allow it to cool completely while you proceed with the recipe.

Cake and topping:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, F.

In a large bowl, Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Using a pastry cutter, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it looks like coarse crumbs. In another bowl, mix the egg, starter, vanilla and milk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.

For the topping: in a small bowl, mix together the oats sugar nuts and flour. Using the pastry cutter, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it forms coarse crumbs. Set aside.

Butter an 8” x 8” square pan. Pour half of the cake batter into the pan. Pour the filling over the cake batter and spread it out with a silicone spatula. Drop the remaining batter over the filling in small amounts. Use the spatula to carefully spread the batter over the topping. It can be sloppy but you want to make sure there are no giant holes for the filling to come gushing out of. Sprinkle the topping ingredients evenly over the cake. Bake for 35 – 40 minutes. Check the cake at 35 minutes by using a toothpick to see if it comes clean. If it needs a few more minutes and you think the nuts are browning to quickly, use a sheet of aluminum foil to tent over the cake and keep the topping from burning. Cool the cake on a wire rack before serving.

　

7 Comments

Everything smells like Peaches

July 16, 2009 at 10:53 pm (Baking, Breakfast Goodies, Eat Healthy!, Eat your fruit & Veggies, Recipes)

PeachStrawberryMuffin1

The stars are in some sort of an alignment today. I know they are. The house smells of freshly baked peaches and we just ate something so incredibly good that I heard an exclamation of “that is the best muffin I’ve ever had!” I am very smugly pleased with myself.
 
We’ve been going seriously strawberry crazy for the past few weeks. You don’t even want to know how much friendly fire there has been. Strawberries are low in calories and loaded with vitamins and minerals. They are delicious on their own, sun kissed and juicy. But lately, these wonderful gems have been attracting all sorts of fat and calories from the most incredible shortcakes ever with rum scented whipped cream (which didn’t stay in the house long enough for pictures or blog entries, even though we went through five rounds of them), to all manner of breakfast goodies (we’re talking waffles, french toast and any number of variations on pancakes). The strawberries somehow got ahead of the cooking this week. We already had two baskets of them in the fridge when I thought it was a good idea to buy another three pack on Sunday. When I got to the seriously ripe berries today, I saw casualties and it wasn’t going to get any prettier.
 
Most people’s first instinct in this situation is to make jam or some sort of sauce. I kept thinking about the outrageous scones I ate at a long closed down seaside café years ago. The scones were baked with a layer of fresh bananas, strawberries and peaches. An odd baked good, the scones were a bit mushy from the fruit, but the flavor and freshness of the just baked fruit was outstanding. I was so sad when the café closed down. I have been thinking about those scones for years. It got me thinking that the berries would be good baked into something.
 
I started looking online for a scone or muffin or quick bread recipe. I found a recipe for strawberry muffins that looked pretty basic. The comments from readers of this website agreed that the muffins had potential but were bland until the person did this, or that, or this other thing or yet another thing. Armed with a dozen suggestions the basic recipe and my usual idea of what ingredients a muffin should contain, I set to work. I realized that I had a peach sitting in a bowl on the counter that was now soft but needing to be used. Once I was done, my recipe had nothing to do with the original recipe.
 
The house, where ever you go, in any room now smells like freshly baked peaches. The muffins are amazing. The texture is moist for a whole grain muffin, the flavor is almost erotic with the heady scent of spices and the sweetness of the fruit and orange zest. The tops baked high and became crispy when they browned. Yes, I agree. These are the best muffins I have ever had too.
 
PeachStrawberryMuffin2
 
 Peach strawberry muffins 
 
 2 ¾ cups whole grain pastry flour
 
½ cup brown sugar
 
¼ cup evaporated cane juice or granulated sugar
 
2 tsp baking powder
 
¾ tsp salt
 
1 tsp cinnamon
 
½ tsp powdered ginger
 
¼ tsp allspice
 
Zest of one orange
 
2 eggs, beaten
 
¼ cup orange juice
 
1/3 cup olive oil
 
½ cup milk
 
1 tsp vanilla extract
 
¾ cup peeled, diced fresh peach
 
¾ cup diced strawberries
 
Olive oil spray
 
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray two six up muffin tins liberally with olive oil spray.
 
In a large bowl, mix flour, both kinds of sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice and orange zest until combined.
 
In another bowl, mix beaten eggs, orange juice, olive oil, milk, and vanilla extract until well combined.
 
Toss the fruit into the flour mixture, taking care to make sure the fruit is covered in the flour mixture. Add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture and stir carefully with a rubber spatula until the ingredients are just combined being careful not to over mix or damage the fruit. Divide the batter evenly between the twelve muffin cups, filling to the top. Bake 25 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffins comes out clean.
 
Let the muffins cool for just a minute and then carefully (don’t burn yourself) remove the muffins from the tins and transfer to a wire rack. (Taking them out of the tins will keep them dry and crunchy). Let them cool a bit. Enjoy warm or completely cooled.

6 Comments

Mmmmmmm! Pancakes!

June 30, 2009 at 7:09 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Eat Healthy!, Recipes, Sourdough)

Orange Sourdough Pancakes

It’s time to cook with another blogger.  This yummy recipe for orange sourdough pancakes comes from Biker Chickz recipe blog.  I stumbled on to this recipe one day when looking for new things to do with sourdough.  I cook a lot of pancakes and tend to stick to my old classics so I kept forgetting to try something new until today.  I’m really glad that I tried these!

Since I always want my pancakes to be a little more whole grainy than most, I made some of my typical changes to the recipe.  I used whole wheat pastry flour for the additional flour (my starter is white flour), I used half the sweetener and substituted honey for sugar and then I used olive oil in place of the butter.  For the original recipe and what looks like a very tasty orange syrup go here (we had these with real maple syrup).

Despite my monkeying around with the recipe before I can even try it out, the pancakes came out beautifully!  They were thin and crêpe like.  The flavor of the sourdough was malty and grainy yet wonderfully enhanced by the orange juice.  The pancakes came out a yellow golden color from the fresh orange juice.  We were going to eat the pancakes with yogurt and strawberries, but I had to strip my plate down to just maple syrup and pancakes.  The pancakes were too delicious on their own to be covered up by competing flavors.

Thank you Becky the Biker Chick.  I’ll make these pancakes again and again!

Orange Sourdough Pancakes redux

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 tbsp honey

2 eggs

1 cup active sourdough starter

1 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

3 tbsp olive oil

In a large bowl, stir together whole wheat pastry flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  In another medium sized bowl, beat the eggs.  Whisk the following into the eggs:  honey, sourdough starter, orange juice and olive oil.  Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just moistened.  Let stand for 5 – 10 minutes.  Batter will be bubbly!

Preheat an electric griddle to 325 degrees.  Ladle out the pancakes so that they are about 4” in diameter.  Let cook until dry and bubbly on the sides (about 2 -3 minutes).  Flip pancakes and cook for about another minute until golden brown.

4 Comments

The best use for a tiny ciabatta roll

January 3, 2009 at 7:28 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Eat Healthy!, Entree, Seafood, Sourdough)

smoked-salmon-ciabatta

Since I baked up my teensy ciabatta rolls, people all week have been telling me that size doesn’t matter.  I decided to listen to them and enjoy them in the form of a diminutive breakfast sandwich.  After all, I love tea sandwiches and they make up for their size by sheer force of will.  Any good tea sandwich will be loaded with creamy, sweet, smoky, meaty, eggy flavors.  A tea sandwich is so rich that a smaller size is almost required so that the eater is not overwhelmed.

 

I haven’t gone to a favorite breakfast place of mine in awhile but that particular restaurant had the best bagels I have ever had (which probably isn’t saying much since I have never had a New York bagel, but trust me, these were pretty amazing bagels!).  One way they served their delicious bagels was as a smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich.  I decided the mini ciabattas would make a great stand in for those wonderful bagels and once I heated them in the oven so that the crusts crisped back up and the insides became warm and soft from the heat, I had an amazing breakfast on my hands. 

 

Most smoked salmon sandwiches seem to be made with the kind of smoked salmon that comes in slices.  I prefer the chunks of smoked salmon instead.  I am lucky to have Trader Joes where I live and they currently have wild caught smoked king salmon.  The salmon is merely cut into half-pound slabs of salmon filet on the skin and then smoked.  I prefer it this way because the salmon seems meatier yet delicate in texture.  That texture is just right for such a rustic sandwich as this.

 

Smoked Salmon Sandwich

For each sandwich:

 

1 mini ciabatta roll, small multigrain bagel or two diagonal slices of

baguette (or the bread of your choice)

 

2 oz smoked salmon filet

 

1 tbsp whipped light cream cheese or regular cream cheese

 

Thinly sliced red onion to taste

 

Capers to taste

 

If using the ciabatta roll or a bagel, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  When the oven has warmed, put the bread in the oven to warm for about 3-5 minutes.  Remove the bread from the oven and let it cool slightly before slicing it open.  If the center of the bread is still very hot, let it cool slightly, then spread cream cheese on both halves.  Sprinkle the thinly sliced red onions onto the sandwich halves and then top with sliced salmon.  Sprinkle liberally with capers.  Enjoy!

 

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Weekend pancake blogging

May 25, 2008 at 8:03 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Eat Healthy!, Eat your fruit & Veggies, Recipes)

I’m back if only temporarily. I’m working out one of life’s “little” challenges and have been eating restaurant food more than food from my own kitchen.  So… not a lot to blog about.  I really miss doing this and hope that anyone still hanging on out there, having patience with me, will keep being patient and wait for my life to become something vaguely resembling it’s former self. 

 

I have to admit something to you.  I have been holding back a pancake recipe.  It’s actually something I put together years ago and it is the recipe I go to often.  These are two-grain pancakes but the second grain is surprising. I created a whole-wheat pancake but switched out some of the flour for brown rice flour.  Brown rice flour has no gluten so using it in these pancakes gives the finished product a lighter texture and a nuttier flavor.  These pancakes can be made with buttermilk, which makes them thin, and almost crepe like.  The best way to make them however is to mix one part plain nonfat yogurt with one part milk for the liquid in the recipe and let the batter stand a few minutes before cooking the pancakes.  You will be rewarded with a thick, tall pancake with amazing flavor and texture.  Perfect for stacking.  Perfect for loading up with goodies. 

 

Today’s breakfast featured bananas cooked inside the pancakes until they caramelized.  We had the sweetest fresh strawberries so we generously loaded them on top of the pancakes with yogurt, maple syrup and wheat germ.  As the summer progresses, use any fruit that tickles your fancy either on or in the pancakes.  All berries except strawberries can be cooked into the cakes.  Stone fruit such as peaches and nectarines are also excellent cooked in the pancakes.  Toast pecans, walnuts or almonds to sprinkle on top.  You deserve it.

 

Mimi’s wheat and rice cakes 

 

½ cup brown rice flour

1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

1 egg

1 cup nonfat yogurt mixed with 1 cup low fat milk until smooth, or 2 cups buttermilk

2 tbsp olive oil or canola oil

Butter for frying

Thinly sliced fruit or whole berries (optional)

 

In a large bowl mix together the brown rice flour, whole-wheat flour, baking powder and baking soda.  In another bowl, beat the egg.  Add the egg, milk/yogurt mixture or buttermilk and oil to the dry ingredients.  Mix well to make sure the wet and dry ingredients are incorporated but don’t over mix.  Let the batter stand at least ten minutes before you fry the pancakes.

Preheat an electric griddle to 325 degrees.  Melt butter on the griddle (for crispy edged pancakes).  Ladle the pancakes onto the griddle. If you want to add fruit, do it as soon as you ladle the pancakes onto the griddle.  Just sprinkle the fruit onto the surface of the cakes and lightly press it in.  Cook the pancakes until they look bubbly and dry on the edges.  This should take three or four minutes.  Turn the pancakes and cook them another two or three minutes.

 

The pancakes may have to be cooked in two batches.  If you are not serving the first batch right away, store them on a cookie sheet in a warm oven (200 degrees f.) or store them in a covered glass dish.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

4 Comments

Waffles. Need we say more?

March 22, 2008 at 9:07 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Eat Healthy!, Recipes)

I have no idea what is wrong with me this week.  I have been allowing myself a maximum of five to six hours of sleep per night the entire week. All week I have had trouble waking up.  I have been tired, and grumpy.  My normal brainpower has been very impaired and I’ve felt horrible all week.  This morning, with no responsibilities and no expectations, I slept and slept a luxurious sleep that allowed me to wake naturally at a quarter to ten this morning.  Mmmmm.  It felt so good.  My boyfriend was very patient and did not try to wake me up.  But after I dilly dallied browsing a Gourmet magazine and the internet, the pleasant sound of my boyfriend’s guitar gave way to a low rumbling chanting of “pancakes, pancakes, pancakes, pancakes…”   It must be time for the poor guy to be fed.  Time to set to work.

 

I was reading the February issue of Gourmet this morning when I noticed that I put a crimp on a certain page weeks ago when I got it.  The page had four different kinds of breakfast yummies on it.  By some chance of fate, I had sour cream in the house (my boyfriend dislikes sour cream so we don’t use it as a topping for anything, it is usually a rare ingredient in my actual cooking).  The recipe that caught my eye was for Cardamom sour-cream waffles with lingonberry preserves.  I had all of the ingredients except lingonberry preserves.  I do however; have a really exceptional jar of raspberry and cranberry preserves, which I thought should be tart sweet enough to stand in for the berries in the recipe.  I consulted with my boyfriend and he felt adventurous enough to give them a try.

 

The recipe was a hit.  The only problem I had was my normal problem that I can’t seem to make a crispy waffle to save my life.  I’m not sure if it is me, the phase of the moon or my waffle maker but my waffles always come out soft.  I suspect it is the olive oil that I fill my mister with.  I should probably oil the waffle maker with polyunsaturated oil.  But the waffles were sooooo good anyway!

 

Boyfriend:  These are so good.  You won’t forget to write this recipe down, will you?

As I shake my head and chew, I’m thinking: I hope I’ll remember to make these again.

Boyfriend:  Aren’t you going to blog these?  Will you remember to make these?

Chewing, I get up and find the camera.  As I keep thinking, I don’t want to get up, I don’t want to let these get cold, I already blogged a couple of days ago, grrrrr….

 

Click

 

Click

 

Click….

 

Cardamom sour cream waffles

 

Cardamom Sour-Cream Waffles

Adapted from the February issue of Gourmet Magazine

 

1 ½ cups whole-wheat pastry flour

1 ½ tsp baking powder

¾ tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cardamom

¼ tsp salt

1 cup lowfat milk

1 cup sour cream

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tbsp dark honey

2 large eggs

3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

 

Serve the waffles with yogurt, maple syrup and preserves (lingonberry if you can find them, if not any tart berry preserves such as raspberry cranberry preserves will do nicely.  You want a good berry flavor to compliment the floral flavor of the cardamom)

Preheat your waffle iron.

 

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, and salt.  In another bowl, whisk together milk, sour cream, vanilla, honey, eggs and melted butter.  Mix wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just well combined.  Spray or brush the waffle iron with oil.  Cook waffles according to your waffle iron’s instructions.  Store waffles in a slightly warm oven until all of the waffles are cooked and you are ready to serve them.

     

15 Comments

On my way back to normal

March 15, 2008 at 9:42 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Condiments, Eat Healthy!, Eat your fruit & Veggies, Recipes)

Carrot Cake Pancakes

Over the past few weeks, this has been anything but a food blog and my diet has been anything but healthy.  During the weeks I was away, my Mom and I ate a lot of restaurant/fast food and hospital food.  The stress made us too tired to take care of ourselves properly and there was really no time to take care of the day-to-day chores like grocery shopping and cooking.  My Dad is back at home now and getting stronger every day.  I called him a couple of days ago and asked him how he was.  He boisterously replied “TERRIFIC!!!”  Which is his standard answer to that standard question.  I instantly knew things were now normal.  Things will be o.k.

 

I have been cooking a few things since I have gotten back but we have gotten into a bad restaurant habit again.  Work has been stressful since I have been back so I have been easing my personal life slowly back to that place called normal. 

 

Today was the first day I really felt home.  It was the first day that I really got excited about getting back into the kitchen.  I woke up and wanted to make pancakes.  If you have been browsing around this blog, you know that Saturday mornings mean breakfast at my home.  Saturdays are all about sleeping in late and then settling into a yummy plate of something sweet or savory and very filling, a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice and a mug of something hot, bitter and steamy.

 

I wanted pancakes and after brushing off the remnants of a strange dream where I was traveling somewhere on a Greyhound bus and my Mother was loading an unending supply of plastic bags of groceries onto the bus for me, my mind was ready to use the energy from that dream state and come up with something beautiful in the real world.  For some reason, I began to think of carrot cake and how wonderful pancakes would be if they were carrot cake instead.  I found a small bunch of thin, sweet carrots in the vegetable drawer of our fridge.  They were too small to peel, so I scrubbed them well and shredded them.  Using a favorite recipe for sweet potato pancakes as a general roadmap, I came up with some fragrant dried fruit and vegetable pancakes that take getting your first serving of vegetables for the day to another plain of experience altogether.

 

Carrot Cake Pancakes

 

2 cups of shredded carrots

 

2 tsp. finely grated orange peel

 

2 large eggs, beaten

 

2 cups milk

 

1 cup currants

 

4 tbsp olive oil

 

1 tbsp dark honey

 

2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour

 

4 tsp baking powder

 

1 tsp salt

 

2 tsp cinnamon

 

¼ tsp nutmeg

 

¼ tsp ginger powder

 

½ tsp allspice

 

Butter for frying

 

Maple-cinnamon yogurt (recipe follows)

 

Toasted Walnuts

 

In a large bowl, combine shredded carrots, orange peel, eggs, milk, currants, olive oil and honey.  In another bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice.  Mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients.  Let the batter stand for at least ten minutes.  (This will result in a fluffier pancake with softer currants).  If using an electric griddle, preheat the griddle to 350 degrees F.  Melt butter onto griddle surface.  Ladle batter onto griddle.  Cook pancakes until bubbles form and the edges begin to dry out about 3-4 minutes.  Turn pancakes.  Cook second side until lightly browned, about 1-2 minutes more.

 

This recipe makes a lot of pancakes, even with a large electric griddle you will need to make two batches.  Keep the first batch warm in a covered dish or a preheated 200 degree F. oven  Serve these with Maple Cinnamon Yogurt, Maple Syrup and toasted walnuts to get the full effect of carrot cake for breakfast.

 

Maple-Cinnamon Yogurt

Maple-cinnamon yogurt

1 cup of plain nonfat yogurt

 

1 tsp ground cinnamon

 

1 tsp maple syrup

 

 Combine yogurt, cinnamon and maple syrup with a whisk until smooth.

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Winter fruit on my breakfast

December 15, 2007 at 9:12 pm (Breakfast Goodies, Condiments, Eat Healthy!, Eat your fruit & Veggies, Recipes, Side Dish)

Maple roasted apples

After months of unusually hot weather, we are finally beginning to get the kind of winter chill that makes me think of Christmastime even though the sky is still clear and blue and the air is dry.  That’s California for you.  No change of season when you think about it.  It’s either dry and hot or dry and cold.

 

Our local farmer’s market also reflects the season.  We have persimmons, oranges and apples and that’s about it.  Some enterprising farmers dried their summer and fall bounty so plenty of dried fruit is also available.  With that in mind, I wanted fruit on my pancakes but the kitchen was looking pretty sparse.  We have plenty of Fuji apples in the fridge so playing off of a recipe for maple roasted yams that I love, I decided to maple roast some Fuji’s to top our pancakes with.  This was an impromptu effort on my part so the following recipe is just an approximation.  I don’t think it would be easy to mess these up even with my “pinch of this, pinch of that” instructions.  These apples were fabulous on our favorite cornmeal pancakes with yogurt and toasted walnuts.  I think they would also make an excellent side dish for pork chops as well.

 Apple topped pancakes

Maple roasted apples

4-5 Fuji apples, peeled, cored and sliced

 

Lemon zest from ½ a lemon, approx. 1 tsp

 

1-2 tsp lemon juice

 

A generous amount of cinnamon

 

A miserly amount of nutmeg

 

Ginger to taste

 

A generous handful of raisons

 

2-3 tbsp grade B maple syrup

 

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

 

Toss the apple slices with lemon juice and zest.  Combine apple mixture with raisons and cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and maple syrup to coat.  Roast the apples in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes or until the raisons are plump and the apples are caramelized and soft and lightly browned.

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