Waffles.

I think we'll have waffles for (a late!) breakfast today. While I'm waffling away about waffles here on my blog I'm hoping the kids are getting themselves dressed. A can get herself dressed fine but N still likes a lot of help and, yes, I do still help him as otherwise it takes an awful long time (yup, he's got me sussed!). During the holidays I find the bribe of a sweet breakfast treat encourages him to make more of an effort, though to be honest he often just gets A to help instead.

Anyway, these photos were taken way back in August and I'm just getting round to posting them now. The recipe is from a German friend who often treated us to waffles at her house. We were round tucking into them one day, idly discussing where one would buy a waffle maker. The answer - Lidl! They only have them now and again, you just need to watch out for them, or have a friend who scouts for you which is what happened in my case and I bought the last one in the shop at the time. They were £15 as I recall, and it is something I use fairly regularly and it's easy to store, not being very large. So, yes, I'd recommend one. While writing this I do recall Nigella having something (not good!) to say about waffle makers in her "Kitchen" book, I'll dig it out:- "...attempting waffles for my three was more stressful than you can believe..." Hmmm, I reckon she's just been using the wrong recipe or something. Anyway, she also says she's not yet taken her waffle maker to the charity shop so if you know her, (and I did once meet someone who did - at the time I was in Italy with a mainly London based orchestra, which sounds terribly grand but wasn't - I'm never taking a bus to Tuscany again, and we had the same meal (roast pork) EVERY single night of the trip, well, one of the times we were sitting down to eat our pork I passed on a not too kind comment I'd heard about one of Nigella's books, on hearing which the lady sitting next to me immediately leapt to Nigella's defence saying that she was a neighbour of hers and a very nice lady too!) you could pop round and ask if she still has it and offer to take it off her hands.

Right, here's The Recipe that works:-

Astrid's & Marion's Waffle Mix


125g (5oz) soft butter
125g (5oz) sugar
3 eggs
250g (10oz) plain flour
375ml milk

I make up the mixture in a similar way to making a sponge cake. First I cream the butter and sugar.

Then I add the eggs one at a time, each with a little bit of flour added before mixing so that the mixture doesn't curdle.

The I mix in the rest of the flour,

before mixing in the milk to make quite a runny batter.

Each waffle takes about two and a half tablespoons of batter. I let them cook for around two minutes.

And that's it! Serve warm with a sprinkling of icing sugar (the childrens' favourite), a squirt of golden syrup (my favourite). I hear it's also nice with Nutella (though I daren't buy jars of Nutella as I'm prone to scoffing it without restraint), or raspeberries, strawberries, whipped cream, honey, chopped nuts etc...

So, Nigella, if you're reading this, dig out your waffle maker and have another go, before your neighbours come knocking...