Strawberry Waffles

June may be one of my favorite months of the year. Summer has arrived, but it hasn’t reached terribly high temperatures with terribly high humidity. Perhaps my favorite part of the month is that those horrible plastic-tasting strawberries you buy at the grocery store are, for ever so briefly, replaced by wonderfully tart-sweet strawberries at the farmers’ market.

TheBoyfriend and I had a house guest who was in town for a reunion this weekend. He did me a huge favor and stopped by the farmers’ market Saturday morning to pick up some strawberries while TheHouseGuest and I were detained elsewhere. As TheHouseGuest prepared to return to her home this morning (yesterday morning, technically), I combined my favorite waffle recipe with my favorite fruit for a bright way to start the day.

Please disregard that pat of butter in the corner. If you are like my boyfriend, you think you shouldn’t butter anything. If you are like me, you think everything needs butter (including items that are already comprised of a substantial amount of butter). Hey, the featured ingredient here is fruit, this recipe has to be healthy. Right? Also disregard the hideous flooring. Please?

Strawberry Waffles

Yeasted Waffles

Adapted from Mark Bittman

Ingredients

• 1/2 t. instant yeast
• 2 c. all-purpose flour
• 1 T. sugar
• 2 c. milk (use at least 2%)
• 8 T. butter
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, seperated
• Approximately 10 strawberries (preferably from a garden or a farmers’ market)

Directions

1. About eight hours before you want to eat the waffles, combine the dry ingredients and stir in the milk, butter, and vanilla. Cover the loose mixture with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature. (Typically, you do this before you go to bed at night.)
2. Preheat your waffle iron and spray with nonstick cooking spray or brush with canola oil or melted butter. Stir the egg yolks into the batter.
3. Thinly slice the strawberries. Keep the slices of four of the strawberries together to garnish the finished waffles (see photos).
4. With a whisk attachment on your stand mixture (or hand mixture), beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Gently fold them into the batter. (You could skip this step and just add the entire eggs to the batter and stir. The waffles will not be as good, but if you never make them the harder way, you won’t know the difference.)
5. Spread enough batter to fill the waffle iron.
6. Scatter slices of strawberries across the batter. (I usually place five slices per small waffle, or twenty per batch of four.)
7. Bake until desired doneness–at least until crispy–three to six minutes.
8. Repeat steps 4-6 until you run out of batter.

Strawberry “Syrup”

Note: I made this recipe up on the fly. It turned out great, but it did taste more like strawberry jam than the strawberry syrup you would buy at the grocery store (or eat at–egads!–IHOP). The goal here is not to thicken the jam, so be careful to not let it boil long. I suspect that adding sugar and more water might have made it taste more like traditional strawberry syrup.

Ingredients

• 12 oz. high-quality strawberry jam
• 2 T. water

Directions

1. In a small sauce pan, heat water and jam on medium high heat until the mixture boils, stirring often.
2. Reduce heat to medium low and continue to stir occasionally.
3. Right before you add the syrup to the waffles, increase the heat again for a minute or two.
4. If you want more syrup for your waffles, increase the water and/or jam.

Whipped Cream

Ingredients

• 1 c. heavy whipping cream
• 1 T. sugar
• 1. t. vanilla extract

Directions

1. Chill the heavy cream, the mixing bowl, and the whisk attachment in the freezer for fifteen minutes.
2. Place the heavy cream in the mixing bowl and start mixer fitted with the whisk attachment on low speed for 30 seconds.
3. Increase speed to medium high and gradually add the sugar. Beat until soft peaks form.
4. Add vanilla. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Assembling the Waffles

1. Place one large waffle on a plate.
2. Lightly butter the waffle. (I suppose this step could be optional.)
3. Add about 1/2 cup of strawberry syrup to the center of the waffles and spread.
4. Add about two tablespoons (or more!) of whipped cream to the center of the waffle.
5. Fan out one of the reserved strawberries and place in the center of the whipped cream.