THE DELICIOUS

Growing up, Sundays meant one thing: waffle day! Saturday was often a work day, selling our produce at the Farmer's Market in the spring, summer and fall, but Sunday was a lazy day, a day to gorge ourselves on berries and cream and yeast waffles that my father cooked using a special, old-fangled waffle iron designed to fit over the fire box of our wood burning cook stove. The cream was heavy and flavored only with vanilla, the fruit whatever was in season--strawberries, raspberries, and the odd tayberry, loganberry or wild blackberry.

This Sunday, Alex and I put the fancy, electric, non-stick waffle iron we scored from his dad's place to use making a batch of waffles on our own. Not quite as good as when my father makes them, and I think they could do with just a touch of woodsmoke for flavoring, but pretty dang tasty nonetheless! Below is the recipe, as relayed to me by my dear old dad, if anyone would like to give them a try.

Raised Whole Wheat Waffles

1/2 c. lukewarm water
1 Tbsp. yeast
2 c. lukewarm milk
1/4 c. melted butter or oil
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten

Place water and yeast in large bowl and let stand 5 min. Add milk, butter or oil, salt and sugar. Beat in flour and eggs, do not over-beat. Batter will be thin. Set in a warm place until it just begins to rise, about 15 min. Cook in a preheated, oiled waffle iron.

If you don't have whole wheat pastry flour, you can use all purpose flour. Maybe use just a little more and be very careful not to over-beat it. The waffle iron temperature is very important. Too cool and it will stick. Too hot and it will burn and stick. The batter should sizzle nicely and begin to bubble as soon as it hits the iron. A little butter works well to oil the iron.

Good luck. I haven't made these for a while. I'm getting hungry just thinking about them.

Love,
Dad