Today, I had a mother in the house with me on mother's day for the first time in a long time. Bonnie, on her way up to my cousin's wedding in NH, arrived Friday afternoon. We didn't have any big plans for mother's day, as going out is generally too crazy to be considered a good idea. Jer had recently bought a Belgian waffle maker, so I wanted to try out a recipe I saw for "authentic" Belgian waffles. This required buying special sugar, naturally. The sugar happened to arrive on Friday, and a plan was born!
So, Sunday, I was awake at 0500, but lazed in bed for another half hour until the dog said, "Hey, I'm up, and since you're up, why don't we get up? That, or I'll pee on your floor. Your choice."
So we got up. The dog and I, that is. I knew the waffle recipe took some doing, so went ahead and got it started. This is not an ordinary waffle batter. It's actually a dough. It's rather like a brioche bread dough, really, quite heavy on the butter and eggs. So I knew it was going to need a nice long rise. While the yeast was proofing, I sliced up some strawberries. I got the dough all mixed up (except for the special sugar; it goes in right before cooking) and cozied it away in the cupboard to rise. Then I went back to bed, because, really, it was 0615 on Sunday morning. Even I'm not that crazy, generally.
Jer and I got up about an hour or so later and - yay! - the dough had risen. It was a glorious sight.
It still had to wait a bit, though, since we wanted to run some "junk" waffle batter through the iron since it's brand new. The dogs would thank us later.
It was now time to add the sugar. I went ahead and just mixed it in with my hands - what are hands for, after all?
We got blobs of the dough on the waffle iron and got them waffling up. They smelled pretty good. Bonnie and I got the first two, because Jer's so nice, and by the third one, Jer really got his technique down (see how that worked out, there?). They're supposed to be cooked long/hot enough to kind of melt/caramelize the sugar chunks. Yes, this made quite the mess on the waffle iron. Jer cleaned it up. But look at these beauties:
The dough made six waffles, but they were so rich we each only ate one. I've had a little pot of real Canadian maple syrup that I've kept on hand for a special occasion, so I busted it out for this. Jer and Bonnie had theirs with the syrup, but I had mine plain. They really were pretty good.
So, happy mother's day, everyone! We appreciate our mothers, yes we do.
No comments:
Post a Comment