10 Recipes Every Beginning Cook Should Know #6 Pancakes and Waffles

Everyone says breakfast is the most important meal of the day but no one tells me how to incorporate breakfast into an already packed morning especially since I don’t do processed food. Often I make a small batch of pancakes or waffles and have one serving in the morning and the second serving the next morning.

For my sixth  10 Recipes Every Beginning Cook Should Know I choose pancakes and waffles.

The following recipes are basic recipes, feel free to experiment with add ins like chocolate chips, pumpkin, fruit, spices or all of the above.  You never have to make them the same way twice.

Basic Pancakes

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients

½ cup all purpose flour

1 ½ tsp sugar

1 ¼ tsp baking powder

2 TBS buttermilk powder

1/8 tsp salt

3 TBS lightly beaten egg

1 TBS canola oil

½ cup water

In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, buttermilk powder, and salt; mix well. In another bowl, combine the egg, oil and water. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients mix until just moistened. Drop by ¼ cupfuls onto a heated pan coated with cooking spray. Cook until the bottom is golden, 2-4 minutes. Flip the pancakes and cook until the other side is golden. 2 2 pancake servings.

Basic Waffles

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients

1 cup flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1 egg

¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

¼ cup canola oil

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the egg, milk and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just moistened, some lumps are okay. Spread ¼ to 1/3 cup batter on each side of a preheated waffle iron coated with cooking spray. Bake 7 minutes.

Cornmeal Waffles with Sausage Gravy

I learned a few things this morning. 1. My cockatiels don’t like my penguin egg timer. I sat the egg timer on the cage while I cleaned the food and water dishes causing a flurry of feathers as my tiely boys tried to protect their tiely girl by pecking it and trying to push it off the cage. I can’t even begin to describe the chaos that resulted when the egg timer of death actually went off. Strangely enough, the parakeets, gerbil and rats were completely unaffected by the egg timer of death.

2. Audrey, the lovely blogger at Lady Melady, has the best damned waffle recipes in the universe on her blog. Okay, maybe that is a slight exaggeration but not by much. I have been adapting her waffle recipes for small batches ever since I bought a waffle iron last summer and there hasn’t been a bad one in the bunch I have tried. The first time I made cornmeal waffles with sausage gravy I made a full batch to share with my friend, Joseph, at work. I ate two waffles for lunch. Joe ate 9 waffles and almost a quart of gravy for lunch. Listen to Joseph, these waffles are that good. If you don’t have as big an appetite as Joseph, the waffles and gravy reheat well.

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients
3/4 cup cornmeal
1/2 cup flour
1TBS baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
2 1/2 TBS canola oil
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/2 lb country sausage
1 1/2 TBS butter
2 TBS flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
Preheat your waffle iron. In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; mix well. In another medium bowl, combine egg, oil and milk. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and mix well. Stir in Craisins.

While waffles are baking, cook the sausage in a nonstick skillet on medium high until browned in places. Use a fork to break the sausage into smaller pieces. Drain any fat in the pan. Melt 1 1/2 tablespoons butter in the skillet then stir in 2 tablespoons of flour. Cook and stir the flour for several minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Add 1 1/2 cups milk to the skillet and stir until it starts to thicken. Add garlic powder, salt and pepper. Reduce heat to medium low and let cook, stirring occasionally, until waffles are ready. Serve waffles covered with sausage gravy.

Cranberry Waffles with Orange Syrup

I guess I am not as sick of waffles as I thought because I keep making more of them. I blame my co worker, Joseph. He keeps suggesting all these flavors I want to try.

Joseph’s current suggestion is a cranberry orange waffle. I can do that. As I experimented I discovered I prefer the straight up puck power of plain cranberries in my waffles to the cranberry orange flavor. To honor Joseph’s request for cranberry orange waffle, I made a simple orange syrup to go with the waffles.

Cranberry Waffles

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients
3/4 – 1 cup cranberries, quartered
1 cup flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
¼ cup sugar
2 eggs
4 TBS canola oil
1 cup buttermilk

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the egg, milk and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just moistened, some lumps are okay. Fold in the cranberries. Spread ¼ to 1/3 cup batter on each side of a preheated waffle iron coated with cooking spray. Bake 7 minutes. 3 servings.

Adapted from Sweet Treats

Orange Sauce

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients
2 TBS sugar
½ tsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp grated orange peel, optional
1/3 cup orange juice
1 tsp butter

In a small saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, and orange peel, if using. Stir in the orange juice until smooth. Bring to a boil; cook and stir for 1 to 2 minutes or until thickened to a syrup like consistency. Remove from heat; whisk in butter. 1/3 cup 2 tablespoons per servings

Adapted from The Comfort Food Cookbook

Waffles

I  was looking at my blog this morning and realized 4 out of 5 recipes I posted in February were for some type of bread, quick bread or recipe using bread as an ingredient. Oops. I usually like a little more variety to my posts. I blame it on the weather. When it’s so damn cold baking just seems to feel good and makes the cold go away for a little bit.

Since the weather hasn’t gotten any warmer I am going to give you another bread type recipe. Today I am going to give a basic waffle recipe and a flavor variation on that basic recipe. A few weeks ago, I bought a Rival 2 plate waffle iron to replace a waffle iron I broke when I dropped a crockpot crock on it. Don’t ask. It wasn’t one of my finer moments. In the three weeks I have had it I have made waffles 5 times, experimenting with different flavors.

Basic Waffle

• Difficulty: Easy
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Ingredients
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 egg
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup canola oil

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the egg, milk and oil. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until just moistened, some lumps are okay. Spread 1/4 to 1/3 cup batter on each side of a pre heated waffle iron coated with cooking spray. Bake 7 minutes.

Apple Pie Waffles
Made up by me from stuff I had in my kitchen
To the dry ingredients in the basic waffle recipe add, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg, 1/8 tsp allspice, and a dash of cloves or ginger. To the wet ingredients add 1 tsp vanilla. Once the wet and dried ingredients have been mixed together fold in one peeled and finely chopped Granny Smith apple and proceed with baking them as directed.