Cornmeal and whole wheat waffles
For many years, I have had my own sourdough starter, which lives in the deep recesses of the refrigerator. On special occasions, when special people come to visit my home, I often make sourdough waffles.
The starter unfailingly awakens when coaxed with a little warm water and flour and, after a night’s work, creates a yeasty smelling, bubbling, thick slurry just waiting for beaten egg whites and other ingredients. The resulting waffles are crispy-crunchy on the outside, but tender and moist on the inside. And they taste really good.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that they are made with all white flour. I have been trying to reform them. This week’s waffle recipe makes coarse, crunch, and very flavorful waffles.
This is the season to pick up apples and pears from your local farmers’ market, which can be sautéed and used instead of syrup. Fresh strawberries cut up, along with a little maple syrup are really good too for a special treat.
Because these are so substantial, 32 square inches of waffles per person is plenty, and maybe more than enough. (Two 4 inch squares — the recipe makes about 10 squares in my waffle iron — if your waffle iron is round, the area can be calculated by squaring the radius and multiplying times 3.14).
Servings: 5
Ingredients
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 3/4 cup coarse corn meal
- 1/4 cup wheat germ or some type of multigrain hot cereal (obviously before it is made into hot cereal)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 cups low fat buttermilk
- 2 eggs, separated
- 1/4 cup canola oil
Directions
- Preheat your waffle iron real well.
- Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl.
- In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks into the buttermilk. Beat the egg whites until there are soft peaks.
- Mix the dry ingredients gradually into the buttermilk and egg yolk mixture. Stir in the canola oil, then fold in the egg whites.
- I use about 1/3 cup batter for each 4-inch square, and it doesn’t ooze out of the side.
- Let them cook until the steaming has almost stopped, so they get crispy and brown.
You can keep the early batches warm in the oven while you cook the others if you are feeding a crowd and want to be able to join them at the table.
I think you will like these.
Nutrition information (per serving)
- Calories: 355
- Total fat: 15 g
- Saturated fat: 2 g
- Cholesterol: 89 mg
- Sodium: 818 mg
- Total carbohydrate: 44 g
- Dietary fiber: 5 g
- Protein: 12 g