Waffling
Mom got me a waffle iron for Christmas. Yay! We knew we wanted to use it, and had the chicken and waffles thought even before Christmas; tonight was the night. Dad started making the waffles around 4 o'clock, and since I heard him, I went down to watch.
So. Some appliances are useful; others are pretty. My mother likes pretty. Alas, pretty tends not to be super useful, and that's how this waffle iron appears. It's supposed to take 7-10 minutes to cook a pair of waffles; after 15 minutes, our waffles were never quite done. Now, we had gotten Belgian waffle mix, so we don't know if that is playing into the issue, but I will say the waffle on the package is normal waffle thickness, not the double-thick style we usually see with Belgian ones. Also, for the first set, dad used a smaller amount of batter than he should have, so that there were holes where wells should have been.
Mom, as always, was not particularly helpful.
Mom: You should have cooked them for the recommended time!
Me: We did. The recommended time was 7-10 minutes and we cooked them for 15.
Mom: You should have done some without blueberries!
Me: We did. Dad added blueberries after we did the first couple.
...Methinks she doesn't want to believe that her precious gift is a dud. Especially since she gave me a beanie which I ultimately rejected and put on the dining room table with her purple one. She'd gotten three and gave me a gray one, then said I could have the red one. I tried it on and, frankly, it's not big enough for my head. Plus, I am not a fan of that style of hat anyway. I'm really not a hat person; I only wear one outside in the summer because otherwise I get headaches from sun exposure, and the only time I wear them in the winter is when it's below 20F...and she bought me a perfectly fine hat for Christmas years ago which is now my go-to winter hat. I am not someone who needs more than one of those. So she was super not happy when she discovered both the red and gray beanies on the table, because she was all, you took the red one! So I had to buy another one for myself! ...Oh well, mom; now you have two. Perhaps you should check first before buying multiples of something to make sure it's truly useful. Had you hinted around and asked if I wanted such a thing, I'd have flat-out said no.
So, yeah, mom's kinda touchy about gifts today.
I would like to try it again using one of the recipes in the booklet. Perhaps there's a proper recipe that will work with the iron, though there isn't a plain recipe; they're all flavored. The closest is the vanilla waffle. We still have half the box of the Belgian mix, though you can also make pancakes and crepes with it, so we might just do that. Part of the issue is that the mix didn't rise. It should have expanded while cooking to touch the top of the iron and brown, but it really didn't. Dad even flipped the waffles over to try and cook them some more, but it didn't help much. Fingers crossed that the next time we try, we fare better. Or at least that it goes more quickly.
So. Some appliances are useful; others are pretty. My mother likes pretty. Alas, pretty tends not to be super useful, and that's how this waffle iron appears. It's supposed to take 7-10 minutes to cook a pair of waffles; after 15 minutes, our waffles were never quite done. Now, we had gotten Belgian waffle mix, so we don't know if that is playing into the issue, but I will say the waffle on the package is normal waffle thickness, not the double-thick style we usually see with Belgian ones. Also, for the first set, dad used a smaller amount of batter than he should have, so that there were holes where wells should have been.
Mom, as always, was not particularly helpful.
Mom: You should have cooked them for the recommended time!
Me: We did. The recommended time was 7-10 minutes and we cooked them for 15.
Mom: You should have done some without blueberries!
Me: We did. Dad added blueberries after we did the first couple.
...Methinks she doesn't want to believe that her precious gift is a dud. Especially since she gave me a beanie which I ultimately rejected and put on the dining room table with her purple one. She'd gotten three and gave me a gray one, then said I could have the red one. I tried it on and, frankly, it's not big enough for my head. Plus, I am not a fan of that style of hat anyway. I'm really not a hat person; I only wear one outside in the summer because otherwise I get headaches from sun exposure, and the only time I wear them in the winter is when it's below 20F...and she bought me a perfectly fine hat for Christmas years ago which is now my go-to winter hat. I am not someone who needs more than one of those. So she was super not happy when she discovered both the red and gray beanies on the table, because she was all, you took the red one! So I had to buy another one for myself! ...Oh well, mom; now you have two. Perhaps you should check first before buying multiples of something to make sure it's truly useful. Had you hinted around and asked if I wanted such a thing, I'd have flat-out said no.
So, yeah, mom's kinda touchy about gifts today.
I would like to try it again using one of the recipes in the booklet. Perhaps there's a proper recipe that will work with the iron, though there isn't a plain recipe; they're all flavored. The closest is the vanilla waffle. We still have half the box of the Belgian mix, though you can also make pancakes and crepes with it, so we might just do that. Part of the issue is that the mix didn't rise. It should have expanded while cooking to touch the top of the iron and brown, but it really didn't. Dad even flipped the waffles over to try and cook them some more, but it didn't help much. Fingers crossed that the next time we try, we fare better. Or at least that it goes more quickly.