Shumski - Will It Waffle?: 53 Irresistible and Unexpected Recipes to Make in a Waffle Iron

53 Unexpected and Irresistible Recipes to Make in a Waffle Iron

DANIEL SHUMSKI

creator of waffleizer.com

WORKMAN PUBLISHING NEW YORK

To my mom, to whom I owe my first waffle iron and everything else

Part of writing this book was just me in the kitchen with a waffle iron or three. But if thats all there was to it, I might have gone nuts. So Im grateful there were other people involved. I owe a debt of gratitude to the chefs named in this book for opening their kitchens to me, going along with my crazy schemes, and even contributing some of their own. My thanks also to readers of Waffleizer and my past blogs who helped this little project gain steam before it jumped from the Internet to the printed page, in particular to those who provided kind words and recipe feedback. (Sometimes those two things even overlapped!) Thanks to my editor, Megan Nicolay; to Liz Davis and the rest of the team at Workman; to Michael Maes and his photography studio; and to my agent, Stacey Glick. Thank you to my mom for her voluminous and valuable feedback; to Bryan Kelly for his endless patience and near-endless willingness to try waffled foodstuffs; to Kathy Skutecki for brainstorming and testing; to Melanie Rheinecker for her keen eye and wise counsel; and to Nicholas Day and Peter Klein for their support and encouragement. I cant imagine having done this without any of these people. Im lucky I didnt have to.

You know how sometimes you go to bed with something on your mind and you think maybe a good nights sleep will clear your head?

For me, that something was waffles.

Well, really it was anything but waffles. I already knew waffle batter would work in the waffle iron, but I caught little glimpses of other things: a French toast recipe for the waffle iron... cookies with a waffle pattern on them... waffled bacon. It wasnt much to go on, but it was enough. I was obsessed. What else would work in the waffle iron?

The idea wouldnt quit me on its own, so I decided to do something about it. In the proud traditionwell, the traditionof people with too much time on their hands, I took my obsession to the Internet and created the blog Waffleizer. Once the Will It Waffle? question was out there, people were hungry for answers. Suddenly, the humble waffle iron was capable of more than most people had imagined. Once, it was for making waffles. Now it was for making breakfast, lunch, dinner, and everything in between.

Forgotten waffle irons emerged from dusty cabinets. Neglected waffle makers earned permanent space on the counter. A breakfast specialist turned into an all-day multi-tasker. And I heard about it all. People wrote to tell me that I had made them fall in love with their waffle irons all over again. (What had caused the falling out in the first place?) They wrote to tell me they were seriously thinking about getting a waffle iron. (Really? Just seriously thinking about it? How about seriously doing it?) They wrote to suggest recipes.

Theres something about waffle geometry and the transformative power of the waffle iron that turns a recipe into an adventure, and if theres one thing thats become clear to me, its that Im not the only one who finds the adventure irresistible.

Waffling is growing. For a long while, after I stopped blogging and while I was working on this book, I wasnt sure what to expect. Would waffling wane? I neednt have worried. Waffling did not stop. In fact, it spread.

And yet, theres still more work to be done. Long maligned as single-purpose appliances, waffle irons have a reputation to overcome and baggage to shed.

Counter space is tight, you say? I hear you. But that is most typically a thing said by people who dont use their waffle irons because, yes, counter space is too tight for things you dont use.

Cant afford to buy a waffle iron, you say? Fair enough. Heres a thought: You may well know people who have one but do not use it. Quick! Convince them to give it to you before they find this book. (If that doesnt work, check yard sales, online auctions, for-sale listings, and thrift stores. Or hint a lot around the holidays or your birthday.)

We have a lot of waffling to do. Im almost done here. Let me leave you with this:

These pages are my answers to the question, Will it waffle? But my answers are just the beginning. By the end of this book, you will have the tools you need to continue to experiment and build your own recipes.

Muster your sense of culinary daring. Were going to see what the waffle iron can do.

As with any new endeavor, there can be a bit of a learning curve with waffling. The good news is Ive made many of the waffle messes already so you dont have to. Plus, there are some tricks of the trade, tools, and techniques that will set you on the fast track to success. Before you jump in, take a few minutes to read about what Ive learned, consider the merits of various waffle irons, and discover a few pieces of equipment that will help you along.

Clearly, the most important (and, quite frankly, mandatory) piece of machinery to have on hand for any of the recipes in this book is a waffle iron.

Lets get one thing out of the way: When it comes to waffle iron vs. waffle maker, its mostly a question of word choice. The exception belongs to old-time contraptions made of cast iron and used to make waffles over open flames and in wood-burning stoves. Those are true waffle irons. The rest could probably go either way. When it comes to terminology, I tend toward waffle iron for a simple reason: I am the waffle maker; the machine is the waffle iron.

The two basic categories of waffle iron are the Belgian and the standard. I own six waffle irons. This is something I am not always quick to admit to strangers, but youre holding this book so I feel like I can tell you. You need only one.

BELGIAN WAFFLE IRON: Belgian waffle irons have deeper and generally fewer divots than the standard kind. While this may mean that your food will come out bearing fewer of the distinctive waffle marks, it also means that the marks that are present will be more pronounced.

STANDARD WAFFLE IRON: The standard waffle iron produces the most divots, but they are shallower than those of Belgian models.

NOVELTY WAFFLE IRON: This category encompasses a wide range of waffle irons, everything from models that produce zoo-animal shapes, to waffle sticks with a single row of divots, to a particularly famous cartoon mouse, to the logo of your favorite sports team. The good news is that most of these will probably work with the recipes in this book, though in some cases it may involve some creative shaping to fit the food in the waffle iron.

Whether you use a Belgian or a standard is up to you. Some recipes in this book work slightly differently in each, but all have been tested with both. A few recipes come with notes on preparing them in one kind versus another. Whether Belgian or standard, waffle irons typically come in either round or rectangular shapes. In general, either one will work for the recipes in this book, though the results may of course look different from the photos.