Gingerbread Waffles: Exactly what I hoped for

'Tis the season to not turn the oven on!

Gingerbread Waffles 2 cups flour 1½ tsp baking powder ½ cup baking soda ¼ tsp salt 2 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. ginger ½ cup shortening 1 cup molasses (12 ounces if you're using a kitchen scale) 2 eggs, separated ½ cup buttermilk or sour cream Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices into a sifter. Set aside. Thoroughly beat the shortening and molasses until thoroughly blended. Then beat in the egg yolks. Sift in the dry ingredients, a little at a time, adding them alternately with the buttermilk. Mix well. Beat the egg whites stiff, then fold them in. Cook on a hot, well-greased waffle iron. Source: Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933, via The Internet Archive

I saw this recipe when I was flipping through Mrs. Mary Martensen's cookbook, which I've come to like a lot. You might not think a recipe book from the depths of the Great Depression would have many good options, but most of the recipes look really good. This one in particular has a lot of molasses, it involves a waffle iron, and (as a result of the latter point) means I don't need to turn on the oven in this miserable heat. It's like Mrs. Mary Martensen had a reverse-seance and wrote a recipe just for me.

Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933

We are first directed to beat together the molasses and the shortening. This is when I noticed that today's gingerbread uses only molasses. There isn't any extra sugar added. I never knew I could feel so deeply glad I didn't halve a recipe. If the waffles were bad, the batter at least would be amazing.

 

The molasses and the shortening were a semi-curdled mess, but the egg yolks helped everything coalesce into what looked like a really good blondie batter. 

The recipe calls for sour milk, which was a lot easier in the pre-pasteurization days. From what I understand, raw milk contains the right bacteria to go sour instead of just expiring. Of course, raw milk also has the right bacteria to make you very sick. And even if today's waffles are getting cooked which eliminates the risk of disease, I'm not keeping bottles of germs in the refrigerator. So even though raw milk is easier to get today than it has ever been in this millennium (and has somehow become a political cause for those people with angry eagle car decals), I used sour cream instead.

Tastes like food safety and tacos!

Our batter was soon ready except for the whipped egg whites. And yes, it tasted amazing.

I didn't know if the egg whites would fluff this up or deflate on contact. But afterward, our batter did seem a bit looser.

Our first waffles stuck to the iron even though I made sure to brush it with lots of shortening. I managed to get scratch all the residue out with a wooden skewer, leaving me with a lot of hard batter shavings. This was the best I managed to save.

I gave my iron grease some thought. Before pizzelles taught me otherwise, I always and only used cooking spray. After learning better, I swore my loyalty to melted shortening and a brush. But maybe I had been wrong to completely forsake the spray can. I spritzed the iron and the next waffles fell out of the iron perfectly.

So, we have learned that there is moderation and nuance in all pan fats. But what do we think of the recipe itself?

I am so glad I made these. They taste exactly like what I hoped for. They were light and fluffy rather than dense. You can't really make a gingerbread house out of these (or at least, not a very big one), so you'll have to eat them instead. In short, they were exactly what I thought I'd get at the top of the recipe. If you like molasses and spices, you owe it to yourself.