Easy Waffles!

Easy Waffles

Makes about 8-10 waffles in my square double waffle iron

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 Cups Flour
• 3 Tablespoons Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
• 1/4 Teaspoon Salt
• 2 Eggs
• 1 3/4 Cup Milk (I prefer 2% milk)
• 1/2 Cup Vegetable Oil
• 2 Teaspoons Vanilla, or 1 each of vanilla and almond extract

Special Tools:

Waffle Iron

Instructions:

1. Start heating up your waffle iron!
2. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. 
3. Create a well in the center of the bowl, set aside.  
4. In another medium sized bowl beat the eggs lightly and stir in the milk, oil and vanilla.  
5. All at once add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just moistened and the flour is incorporated with the egg mixture. 
6. It will still be lumpy, that is ok, but over mixing the batter will change the final texture of the waffles.  
7. Pour the amount needed for your waffle iron onto the heated and lightly greased waffle grill plates. 
8. Close the lid quickly and allow to cook according to your waffle iron's directions. For mine it usually takes about 6 minutes before the waffles are done.
9. Now ideally after six minutes the waffles are done and your can start serving them right off the grill plates. but sometimes that isn't always possible. So when I need to make the waffles a little a head of time I heat up my oven to about 250°F and place the cooked waffles on a pizza pan allowing them to just stay at the right temperature till I am finished cooking all the waffle batter.  
10. The waffles can also be wrapped in saran wrap and kept over night in the fridge and then reheated in an oven (about 5 minutes at 375°F) or a toaster oven.

Enjoy!

Notes:

My mom used to like making fun of me because my boyfriend preferred to get me cooking and kitcheny-home-makey kind of things as gifts for all the special events in the run of a year, instead of something specifically like an engagement ring. She was a little pushy on that issue, but that isn't whats important. See I knew that he was buying me things like a hundred dollar giant cast-iron wok (it's red glazed and beautiful), and a Kitchenaid stand mixer because he wanted to be the one to enjoy the delicious products of those gifts. So I wasn't totally surprised when after four years of dating he proposed, I knew he had thought of me as a keeper long before I had the ring. But now that he's popped the question, he has moved on to buying less universally useful kitchen items, like a waffle iron. Because he would reallllllllllly like to have some waffles on the weekends.

So a waffle iron can pretty much only be used to make waffles, actually they seriously only have that one purpose. To be fair, when done Belgian style, waffles are deadly but can also be a bit tedious to prepare and it's easy to make a simple mistake; like over beating the egg whites, or the whole batter all together.  So I set out to test a bunch of recipes for making easier waffles that still have a nice fluffy interior with a light crunchy outside.  Here is the best one I found when I tried my waffle iron, it might work well for yours, but I make no promises. All waffle irons are slightly different, so testing what works with yours is key. Also letting the iron heat up to the proper temperature and misting with cooking spray for each waffle is also key. Unless you like making a mess of things.  OH speaking of mess, test how much batter to add to your waffle iron before going all out with it. It is a lot better in my opinion to have a few waffles that aren't quite filled out to the edge, then to have goopy waffle batter get all over and in the iron electrical parts and all over your counter. I find mine is perfectly filled with my large soup ladle, but a 1 cup measure may also work well for you.

Also waffles are delightful with maple syrup but they are also excellent with berry sauces and whipped cream!