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One Egg Waffles
1 1/2 cups Gold Medal flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 3/4 cups milk 1 egg 2 tablespoons melted butter Mix dry ingredients, add milk slowly, egg beaten very light and the melted butter. Beat batter for two minutes and drop by spoonfuls on well greased, hot waffle iron.
A plain, thin waffle batter written for a stovetop cast-iron waffle iron heated over a gas flame. Everything about it works on an electric iron too, with one adjustment to the liquid.
- The batter is deliberately thinThe batter is thin -- 1 3/4 cups milk to 1 1/2 cups flour gives something much looser than modern waffle batter. A thin batter suits a shallow hinged iron; in a deep electric iron it will run and steam rather than crisp. Start with 1 1/4 cups milk and add more only if the batter will not pour smoothly.
- "Drop by spoonfuls"With a modern iron, pour from a measuring cup into the center and let the lid spread the batter. Spooning it in leaves thin edges that scorch before the middle sets.
- Temper the melted butterButter poured hot into cold milk seizes into flecks that never distribute. Let it cool to barely warm, or warm the milk to room temperature first.
- Do not overbeatThe two minutes specified suggests hand beating rather than a machine. In a stand mixer or blender, thirty seconds to a smooth batter is plenty; more develops gluten and gives a tough, leathery waffle.
- Greasing"Well greased" was essential on unseasoned cast iron. Brush a seasoned or non-stick iron very lightly the first time only -- repeated greasing on a non-stick plate builds a gummy film.
- Heat and timingThe iron is ready when a drop of water skitters and vanishes. Figure 3 to 5 minutes per waffle, and judge by the steam: when it stops streaming from the seam, the waffle is done.
- YieldRoughly four to five 7-inch round waffles, or three of a deep Belgian iron -- two to three servings.
- One eggThe title is the point. Richer waffle recipes of the period often called for two or three eggs, so this reads as an economy version; expect a crisper, less custardy interior.
Gold Medal's cook books were promotional literature from the Washburn-Crosby Company of Minneapolis, later part of General Mills, and they include substantial bread sections. "One egg" recipes — one-egg cakes, one-egg waffles, one-egg muffins — appear all through American cook books of this era as a standing category, since eggs were seasonal and priced accordingly, dear in winter and cheap in spring. The waffle is often said to have come to America with Dutch and German settlers, and it long predates the electric iron: until household electrification, waffles meant a long-handled hinged iron set into a stove opening or held over the coals, flipped halfway through.