Friday, September 12, 2008

Almond Flour Waffles

I have tried many many many versions of this recipe without the eggs in a futile attempt to make an egg free waffle recipe, but alas, you NEED eggs to make good waffles. BUT if you replace the eggs in this recipe with 1 - 1.5 cups of apple or pear sauce, the batter will make BEAUTIFUL pancakes (that's what I did in our egg free days).

Because the recipe calls for a lot of eggs, my boys only get these waffles twice a week (almond flour is part of their rotation too).

Recipe adapted from Cooking to Heal Little Tummies - Jenna Roberts & Natalie Hagood

3 eggs
3 egg yolks
water
2 cups almond flour (I LOVE the stuff that is sold by this website - they have lots of other good stuff too)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp gluten free vanilla extract
2 tbs honey


In mixing bowl, beat the eggs and egg yolks well. As I pitch the egg whites of 3 of the eggs, I add a few table spoons of water to get a nice consistency mixture (yes, there is a bit of an art to this).

Add honey and vanilla and beat well.

Add almond flour, salt, baking soda and mix until smooth. The final texture should resemble a thinner yogurt like consistency. As I said there's a bit of an art to this. If my mixture is too thick, I'll add a little more water or a splash of mango puree (if I have it, I get the mango puree from the same website)

Now making gluten free waffles is tricky. And I've burned out and gunked up many a cheapo waffle iron. After gunking up several, I finally spent a big chunk of cash on a super duper Cuisinart waffle maker. And this is the ONLY waffle iron I haven't gunked up so far (yes, you DO need to clean it after you're done baking.. these waffles ARE a bit crumbly, and a build up of crumbs WILL make negatively affect the next batches you make.

If all this shies you away from trying to make waffles (it took quite a bit of practice for me, but then again, when I started our dietary intervention journey I was a really, really lousy cook), you can use the same batter to make awesome pancakes.

I heat up my waffle iron. I have mine on setting 4. And I let the alarm go off twice, so the waffle iron is nice and hot.

I do use a little cooking spray to prevent the waffles from sticking (I tried without.. no go). I use Spectrum GrapeSeed Spraying Oil (I also have their Olive Oil Spray). Be careful which flavor Spraying Oil you pick up.. all the other ones have ingredients that we need to avoid..

Pour about 1 - 1.5 cup of the batter in the waffle iron. I use a spatula to spread the batter evenly over the waffle iron, the stuff does not spread that well on its own.

Close the waffle iron and let the waffles cook. The original recipe says that the waffles cook very quickly. As I adapted the recipe to suit my needs, I have found that to be NOT the case. So I let the waffles sit in the waffle iron until the alarm has gone off twice.

The waffles are a bit fragile, so you need to remove them carefully from the iron.

The batter makes about 12 waffles. The boys usually polish off about 3 each for breakfast (it's their special Sunday morning breakfast treat). Which then leaves me with 6 waffles that they'll eat on Tuesday for breakfast, and for sandwiches in Tuesday's lunch box. I store the left over waffles in another Pyrex glass dish in the fridge.

[can you tell that I LOVE Pyrex glass dishes? I also own a set of their olden days cooking pots (long live eBay). Love 'em, love 'em. Yes, I do cook in stainless steel pots too, but anything that needs slow cooking or prolonged simmering goes into to the glass pots. While stainless steel is pretty inert (as in nothing comes off), some stuff DOES come off, and we have enough toxicity issues to content with]

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