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Waffles Baking with Shortening
2 C flour. 4 t baking powder. 1 3/4 C milk 2 eggs 1 T melted shortening ¾ t salt Sift flour, salt and baking powder. Add milk and shortening to beaten egg yolks and mix with dry ingredients. Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Mrs. H. A. Taylor.
A standard mid-century separated-egg waffle batter, written in the shorthand of a church cookbook where the compiler assumed every reader knew the basic proportions. The method is complete; the ingredient list is not, so treat the amounts below as guidance rather than as the original's own numbers.
- The abbreviationsC is cup, T is tablespoon, t is teaspoon. "Shortening" here means any solid or melted fat — lard, vegetable shortening, or melted butter.
- Missing quantitiesThe milk and salt figures were checked against the printed page and read as our text now gives them: 1 3/4 cups milk and 3/4 teaspoon salt. The flour and baking powder amounts are absent from the recipe as printed; a waffle batter of this type conventionally takes about 1 1/2 to 2 cups flour and 2 teaspoons baking powder to 2 eggs.
- The hingeFold the beaten whites in last and stop while streaks are still visible. The whites do much of the lifting in this style of waffle alongside the baking powder; overmixing at that stage collapses them and you get a flat, tough waffle.
- Whites to soft peaksBeat the whites only until they hold a peak that droops. Stiff, dry whites break into lumps when folded and will not disperse through the batter.
- Rest, or don'tThis batter is best used immediately. Unlike a yeast or overnight waffle, it depends on air and chemical leavening that begins working as soon as the milk meets the baking powder.
- Iron temperaturePreheat the iron thoroughly and grease it once at the start if it is not nonstick. A waffle is done when the steam coming from the seam slows noticeably, usually three to five minutes; opening early tears the crust.
- YieldA two-egg batter of this size makes roughly four to six waffles in a standard square iron, enough for three or four people.
Separated-egg waffles like this one are often associated with the era of the electric waffle iron, which appeared around 1918 and spread through American kitchens in the 1920s and 1930s, becoming a common household and wedding-gift appliance by mid-century; the recipe itself is undated, so where it falls in that history is guesswork. Church and auxiliary cookbooks were assembled from members' handwritten cards, which may account for instructions that are confident while the measurements stay telegraphic. Entries were signed ": Mrs. H. A. Taylor ": so the books recorded contributors' names alongside their recipes.