Golden Crisp Waffles

I don't think anyone can throw away a jar of screws.

Golden Crisp Waffles 2 cups sifted flour 2 tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt 3 eggs, separated 1¼ cup milk ⅓ cup shortening, melted In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together the egg yolks and milk. Then add them and the shortening to the dry ingredients. Whisk together until mixed. (You might not get all of the lumps out, but don't worry too much about it.) Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Quickly but thoroughly fold them into the batter. Cook on a hot, well-greased waffle iron. Serve hot, with butter and syrup. Source: old Calumet baking powder tin (probably 1950s)

This recipe sort of comes to us from nearly the same source as my great-grandmother's binder. When we were emptying out the apartment, we found a lot of screws carefully sorted into Calumet baking powder tins. Like, a lot of Calumet tins. Apparently, they had some serious brand loyalty to Calumet baking powder in that house. 

We had a lot more Calumet tins than this one box, but I gave them to trick-or-treaters when we ran out of candy.

 

Anyway, I was in the mood for waffles and decided it'd be fun to deviate from my usual recipe (which is "prepare the mix according to box directions"). I was pleasantly surprised to find that you're nearly ready for the waffle iron after getting all your ingredients in a line. Sure, you have to beat the egg whites, but that only takes a minute or two now that electric mixers aren't priced like a lifetime investment.

After stirring everything together, I began to suspect that the Calumet people had sent in a faulty recipe to whoever printed their can labels. The directions say to stir the whites "quickly but thoroughly into batter" and we didn't have a batter. We had a paste.

To my grim lack of surprise, the egg whites deflated completely. I could have just stirred them in and gotten exactly where we are now with fewer dirty dishes. Perhaps the people at Calumet added some pointless extra steps to help you, the home cook, feel like you're not lazy. Or maybe someone had some truly pedantic views about cooking and felt that unbeaten egg whites were as disgraceful as lumpy gravy.

Even though finishing the recipe seemed like disappointment with added effort, our "batter" and iron were both ready. So, I put a big sticky splot of it into place and got it onto the stove. 

Incidentally, I'm not turning into a stovetop waffle snob, even though I haven't used an electric waffle iron in a while. I won't pretend that anyone tell the difference between stovetop and electric waffles once they're on a plate. This is just my idea of a good time.

Although the first round of waffles was thoroughly cooked, I thought they looked rather pale. And the recipe promises us golden crisp waffles. With that in mind, I let the next batch of them cook until I thought they were golden enough.

If we break one open, we can see that they were surprisingly fluffy in the middle. I thought this could be why Calumet people used this recipe on their cans. That single spoonful of white powder worked a miracle on our waffle paste. They were a little dry, but we fixed that with extra syrup.

I glanced again at the recipe as I was cleaning up and discovered why my waffle batter had become a hard, sticky mess. I had cut the milk in half.

Because I love waffles as much as I love giving a recipe a fair chance, I made these again. It turns out that when you actually use the correct amount of each ingredient, a recipe goes a lot better. After stirring everything together, we had a batter just like the instructions say we should. But even though the recipe says to "mix only until smooth," that never happened. The lumps in the batter got smaller at first, but eventually they stopped shrinking. I figured that a lot of muffin recipes tell you that you're going to have some lumps left in the batter, and also managed a half-finished thought about "old-fashioned" and "homemade charm."

I kind of suspected that the batter would squish all the bubbles out of egg whites just like last time. They whites seemed so fragile when they landed on top. However, the batter was actually a bit puffier afterward. After our first mismeasured failure, I was so happy to see a recipe following its own directions.

And so, with a lot of optimism and delight, we poured our first correctly-made golden crisp waffles onto the iron. Unlike or previous sticky mess, this looked like the recipe was going right.

Four minutes later, we opened the iron and found these! I don't usually put butter onto waffles, but who am I to contravene the official written directions?

These were the best waffles I've had in a long time. Their crisp outer crust gives way to a wonderfully soft interior. And they're sturdy enough to take a lot of syrup on top. If I'm making a hot breakfast in the early morning (whether for myself or anyone else), I will use waffle mix. However, this is a great recipe for midnight waffles.

In closing, I have to credit the Calumet people for creating such a forgiving recipe. If your ingredient amounts are a long ways off, you will probably still get decent waffles. That's especially reassuring for those people who, for whatever reason, decided to make them for breakfast and therefore ended up measuring out ingredients at an unspeakable hour of the morning. 

I could be chipper and try to claim that if you measure all the ingredients out the night before, this recipe is a breeze to throw together in time for breakfast. However, neither I nor anyone I know has that kind of homemaking panache. But if you want waffles at an hour when you're already awake, this is a great recipe for them.