Grandma Hillam's Waffles

For Valentine's Day morning I was bound and determined to make a fun breakfast like I remember my mom making every year for us kids. So I decided to recruit my sleepy kiddo...



round up these ingredients...



And get started! I should mention I usually toss in a teaspoon or 2 of vanilla. It isn't on the recipe but I LOVE how the waffles taste with it, I just happened to be out of vanilla and wanted waffles regardless.



While you let Mr. (or Miss) Helpful think they're helping you with something very important on the stove you're going to mix together flour, baking powder, and salt, then add sugar or honey, milk, oil, food coloring. Separate the 2 eggs and put the yolks in with the mixture. Put the whites in another bowl and set aside. Oh, and you should put vanilla in them, or different flavorings. I'm just out of vanilla right now, saaaaaaad.



You'll get something that looks like this. Set that aside to let the baking powder do it's work, and turn your attention the the 2 egg whites. Grab your hand mixer and whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks. I usually am lazy and only go to soft peaks, but took them all the way to stiff peaks like you can see in the picture below, but my waffles ended up chewy so I either over whipped the egg whites or over mixed the batter.





Plop the egg whites in with the batter and gently fold in. It'll take a minute or two, but it really makes a huge difference in your batter and end product.





This is what it will look like when you are done.



Bust out your waffle maker, let it heat up, and start makin' waffles. I like to use a 1 cup measuring cup and fill almost all the way up. My waffle maker has different settings for different crust done-nesses so I've played around with them and on my favorite setting the waffles took about 6 minutes each.



Plate, and enjoy! I should have bought some strawberries and whipped cream, but they were just as good as with syrup!

Grandma Hillam's Waffles
2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 TB honey or sugar
2 TB oil
2 cups milk
2 eggs, separated

Mix dry ingredients, then add honey or sugar, milk, egg yolks and oil; stir until just moistened. Whip egg whites into soft peaks and fold into batter. Ladle just under a cup of batter onto waffle maker and cook until done - watch for the steam to stop as a general indicator of doneness. Top with desired toppings and enjoy!

I'm already brainstorming green waffles for St. Patrick's day...I'm wondering how using Irish Cream coffee creamer in place of some of the milk would effect the batter. Worth a try!