So after tripping breakers and accidentally clarifying my butter and setting off a smoke alarm, for my third outing as Waffle Dad I decided that come hell or high water, I would do this week’s waffles RIGHT.
Preparing the Batter
First, I laid out all my ingredients. After last week’s clarified butter incident, I wanted to make absolutely certain that I would be paying attention. I would focus. 100%. I laid out all my batter ingredients. I warmed the water. I added the yeast.
I melted the butter. Melted – not clarified, thank you very much. This time, for my experiment I decided to up the sugar content (as had been the original plan for last week).
I carefully warmed the milk making sure it was 108 degrees Fahrenheit, added all my wet ingredients, added all my dry ingredients (including the extra sugar), and whisked ’til smooth. The result was a good looking batter that I covered and let sit (outside of the fridge) for a good hour or so. Then into the fridge it went overnight.
The Next Morning...
Again, preparation is key. I laid out all my ingredients. Not that the morning-of ingredients are all that extensive: It’s just the batter, the eggs, and some baking soda. But I laid them all out and got Hercule pre-heating. Note that I had a guest star appear in my photo – that’s MacDuff, our ten year old hound mix looking on curiously as I do things thing the kitchen.
Hercule Goes to Work
So in go the eggs and the baking soda. And away I whisk! And in moments, Hercule is fully preheated and ready to go. For posterity, the settings I used were Belgian-style at a doneness setting of five (5).
So in goes the batter. I was so exacting this time that I didn’t even drip any, and filled Hercule almost perfectly. There was only the tiniest bit of overflow this time – nothing to scrape off the sides.
And when the waffles were done? They were gorgeous! Check out the picture. Isn’t that lovely? Perfectly golden brown, easy to extract, with just the slightest outside crisp encasing a cloud-soft interior. Yum!
The Waffling
So when all twelve waffles were done – using pretty much all of the batter perfectly – we were left with some delicious waffles.
The temperature was perfect. The texture was perfect. I think that the extra sugar content added a little more crispness to the outside, and it definitely cut the sourdough’y taste of the waffles themselves. That’s not to say that it made them sweet – it didn’t. But it did reduce the sourdough flavor just enough to really highlight their buttery deliciousness.
So really this goes to show that the third time’s charm, practice makes perfect, and it pays to pay attention. Prep work went faster, clean-up was easier (because I made less of a mess), and the results came out way better.
Who (besides anyone who has cooked a meal in their life – ever) knew?
For the ROW to know, the savory waffles sampled on 6/18/22 were absolutely delicious! Can’t wait to try the sweet variety, or any others you can cook up! You can add Waffle Master certification to your credentials.