Tasty Tuesday–A New Twist on a Winter Weather Tradition

In our house, we’ve come to look forward to “French Toast Events,” days that are inspired by the “French Toast Map” the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Weatherbird used to create in the run-up to bad winter weather. You knew a winter storm was going to pack a punch if Weatherbird said you needed milk, bread, and eggs (bonus points when he added beer to the map, too). Well, Weatherbird’s latest illustrator retired last year, and while he said that he would continue drawing the character on a freelance basis, as far as I can tell, he no longer uses the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, and so I had no French Toast Map to help me decide how to plan for yesterday’s winter weather advisory. As it turned out, I think they rather underestimated this storm, because the first half of yesterday was an icy nightmare, which included cancellations all over the Bi-State, the closure of Lambert Airport for a time, and multiple accidents, including some with Metro buses and even firetrucks. Anyway, I hadn’t prepared for a full French Toast Event, but I was in a good place for a Waffle Warning, starring French Toast’s cousin, the Mickey Waffle, so we were still able to observe one of our favorite winter weather traditions, just in a new way!

Tasty Tuesday–Mickey Waffles!

When we got home from our vacation, we were all missing Disney World. So I started thinking about what I could do to try to capture some of that Disney magic here at home, and I came up with the idea of Mickey waffles, a fan favorite at Disney that we didn’t actually get to try while we were there!

There were a couple of options when it came to Mickey Mouse waffle makers. Many of them make very similar-looking waffles, but there were differences when it came to price, waffle size, and the number of them you can make at a time. In the end I went with cheap (of course), as well as larger waffles, with the only downside being that I can only make one at a time. They cook pretty fast, though (2-3 minutes each), so in the end, that’s not really a big deal.

Aren’t they the cutest?!?

So far, I’ve only made classic buttermilk waffles, but I’ve served them a few different ways, including with fried egg ears, and a decadent chocolate syrup and whipped cream variety:

We’ve really enjoyed making waffles at home for the last few years (I guess you could call it a pandemic hobby), and it’s even more fun to have a way to hold onto a little piece of our vacation at home!

Tasty Tuesday–Spiced Buttermilk Waffles

We have made A LOT of waffles this year. Right now, one of our favorite kinds is a spiced waffle of my invention (more or less). It’s the perfect warm treat for a cool fall day!

2 c. all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. hawaij (if you can’t find this spice blend, you can mix and measure from 1 Tbsp. ground ginger, 1 Tbsp. ground cardamom, 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg, 1/4 tsp. ground cloves and 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon…this blend is also great in coffee!)
2 c. buttermilk
1/3 c. melted butter
2 lightly beaten eggs
1/2 Tbsp. vanilla

Whisk dry ingredients in large bowl. Mix wet ingredients, and then slowly incorporate into dry ingredients until just blended. Cook according to waffle iron instructions.

Waffle Summer

If there’s anything that defines this summer beyond the “Summer of Hamilton,” it’s “Waffle Summer.” When I rearranged our summer school plans from Tokyo 2020 to cooking, the first thing I wanted to tackle was making waffles. They were such a big hit that we kept making them…every kind we could come up with. Plain waffles, cinnamon, chocolate (topped with ice cream for dessert!), pumpkin, lemon-poppyseed, savory cheese and bacon (topped with fried eggs), cinnamon roll, banana, tropical, gingerbread, blueberry, potato, and buttermilk all made an appearance.