If I give my kids carte blanche to pick breakfast, as I often do on the weekends, they want waffles. It never fails.
Waffles are one of those foods people seem impressed by. If you are used to thinking of waffles as something that comes from a yellow box in the freezer aisle, those little crenulations probably do seem like something mysterious – the exclusive domain of industrial processes.
But in truth, as long as you have a good waffle iron (I’ve had very good luck with this one and recommend Waring Pro waffle makers in general) waffles are super easy, inexpensive crowd pleasers. And if you skip the yellow box and make your own you have a lot more control over ingredients. One final pitch for homemade waffles: you can make a big batch on weekends and freeze them, and then re-heating a homemade waffle is every bit as easy as re-heating a commercial one.
My go-to recipe is this Whole Wheat Yogurt Waffle adapted from Ms. Martha Stewart. It manages to cram a lot of good (and inexpensive) stuff like backyard eggs and homemade yogurt into a whole grain package my kids never balk at.
To make it even easier to get these waffles on the table, I pre-make four or five portions of Whole Wheat Waffle Mix at a time and store them in the freezer. With the mix on hand, waffles are just a bowl and a few eggs away.
Homemade Whole Wheat Waffle Mix
Ingredients
- 1½ cup whole wheat flour
- ½ cup thick-cut oats
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
Method
Combine all ingredients in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse for 10 seconds. Transfer to a jar with a tight fitting lid (a wide mouth pint mason jar fits this mix perfectly) or a plastic freezer bag. Store in freezer for up to 3 months. Makes about 2 cups mix.
Whole Wheat Yogurt Waffles
Ingredients
- Whole Wheat Waffle Mix
- 1½ cups plain yogurt
- 3 large eggs
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted
Method
In a large bowl, whisk together 1½ cup plain yogurt, 3 whole eggs and 4 tablespoons melted butter.
Add waffle mix to bowl and stir until just combined. Batter will be thick. Let batter rest while you heat waffle iron according to manufactures directions.
Pour ½ cup batter, or as much as directed by waffle iron manufacturer, into waffle iron. Cook waffle to golden brown and crisp. Makes about six, depending on your waffle iron.
Serve plain, or with butter, yogurt cheese, maple syrup, jam or fruit as desired.
Making The Mix Fancy
Once you try this easy-peasy waffle mix, you may decide never to buy a box of frozen waffles again. You might even want to share the good DIY waffle news with others.
Here’s an easy way to turn this mix into something gift-able. Just package the waffle mix in a wide mouth pint jar, cover the lid with something Pinterest-worthy (fact: burlap is always Pinterest worthy) and add a cute instruction tag so your gift recipient will know how to make these waffles.
You can download the Whole Wheat Waffle Gift Tags I used here on the Downloadables page. They print out on standard size printable business cards, like these Avery cards, or you can just print them on heavy paper and cut them out.
And if you want to take these tags and put them on your own Whole Wheat Waffle Mix, I think that’s just fine too. As regular reader’s know, I do enjoy labeling my homemade goodies. (See, for example, How To Martha-Up Your Jam Labels For Nearly Free In About 5 Minutes.) Sometimes it’s nice to give yourself the gift of convenience, after all.
Do you make homemade waffles? What’s your favorite way to eat waffles?
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I love yeasted waffles. Let the dough ferment overnight and enjoy the yeasty goodness the next morning. If they are only slightly sweetened, they go equally well with sweet toppings or savoury toppings – a runny camembert is wonderful.
On a side note – why do you add the soda? I guess it’s just me, but I hate the taste of soda. Baking powder and beaten egg whites provide more than enough leavening.
Patrick, baking powder is essentially soda with Cream of Tartar added to provide the acid necessary to produce Carbon Dioxide. In this recipe the acid is provided by the yogurt. I think you may have had some recipes that call for more soda than necessary, as I usually cannot taste it. That said, yeast raised stuff is always the cats whiskers. 🙂
Yes on the fermented! I just made a huge batch a few days ago. I finally mastered the cast iron waffle maker.
What’s your trick with the cast iron waffle iron??? I fail so hard each time I try haha
Make sure it’s well seasoned (shiny but not tacky) and use *high* heat. Resist the temptation to open it too soon. I found letting it heat up for a good five minutes on medium high on each side, then turn down the heat slightly works well. Pour your batter (mine is about a cup size) then immediately flip it. Two minutes then flip and cook 90 seconds, sometimes a tad more. Turn off the heat then open slowly and use a fork to carefully pop it out. After the first one you will not need to preheat again, just keep rolling. If you burn a few, but they come out well, adjust your cooking time and batter (thin it if they aren’t cooking through) before your temp and then decrease your temps only slightly and only after preheating. I burned a few and then had a few not cook all the way through but then figured it out. The chickens enjoyed the mistakes. I enjoyed all the successful ones. I can taste the nonstick crap on waffles so I’m glad to have figured this out.
You mentioned that reheating waffles is easy. Can you just cook ’email up, freeze ’em, and pop them in the toaster to reheat? Cuz that would be super awesome.
That’s what I do, but my toaster is finicky enough that I usually give them a partial defrost in the microwave first, which takes less than a minute.
Looks really DELISH Erica. I don’t think I’ve seen a recipe for waffles using thick-cut oats before and it makes me wonder what other odds and ends could be added. Ground almonds, hazelnuts, bran…all kinds of things probably.
I freaking love waffles! The tradition in our house was to have a giant waffle bunch on Christmas morning while all the aunts and uncles (7 of them plus all the kids and grandparents) were still in town. Dad got up at 3am to start the yeast batter, and once everyone got up Mom made fresh strawberry sauce and whipped the cream. We’d get two waffle irons going, and leftovers were covered by everyone because they reheat so well from the freezer to toaster. In college I realised a waffle iron was perfect for the dorms ( just don’t tell the RA) so I had two in my dorm, and hosted Saturday morning and birthday brunches.
Thanks for the recipe! My 4-year-old and I make our own freezer waffles by making a big batch of blueberry waffles and freezing them, then toasting them for breakfast. I’ve been using a combination of the Arrowhead Mills sprouted grain mix and a regular recipe that involves whipping the egg whites… I think I’ll try this one instead!
My 4 yr old often requests waffles, i dont even need a recipe any more. I have used whole wheat, buckweat and sprouted wheat but never thought of oats I will have to try that. I dont know if this works with regular overpasturized milk but with the milk we buy if it starts to sour it makes excelent waffles, or i put home made yogurt whatever we happen to have. Just about any fruit u have on hand can b turned into topping if you are out of mapple. fruit plus surgar and spices, blueberry cardomon is good for example.
very tasty! I made them this morning. I was worried my family would not like the whole wheat, but they didnt say anything, and they ate them all, so I declare success. My daughter smothered hers with nutella 🙂
Very nice! I’ll have to try this recipe, I love the addition of oats. I’m all about a big batch of waffles on Sunday, freezing the rest and eating them for breakfast during the week. Just tried the fermented yeast (as Bill Miller suggested) – and they were AMAZING!
It’s never too early to start thinking about DIY holiday presents, is it? These waffles look so good–it’s been way too long since I’ve eaten any!–and the gifting idea is perfect.
Looking forward to trying these out! Thanks for the lovely breakfast idea. Yeasted waffles sound great too.
I make waffles much too infrequently, but here’s the link for a yeasted waffle from Saveur.
http://www.saveur.com/article/Recipes/Yeast-Raised-Waffles
Looks easy enough to adapt to Erica’s recipe, with the refrigerated rise and last-minute addition of the baking soda before cooking. Yeah, the risen stuff turns thin, like nearly-melted ice cream, but the waffle comes out really light and crispy. They never last long enough to reach the freezer.
Erica – thanks for passing this along. Now how about a yummy recipe for pancakes?
Hi Erica – can you share the model number of your waffle maker? Thank you!
Sure, but their might be a newer version since I purchased mine. It’s Waring Model #WWM450PC. Here’s reviews on Amazon. The best price I found was at my local Costco. Here’s their on-line offering of this waffle maker, which I think is the same price (maybe slightly higher?) than I paid in the store.
This looks amazing! Thanks for sharing and for the printables!
Why do you store the dry mix in the freezer? Is that just where you have storage space?
Flours, especially whole grain ones, tend to not go rancid nearly as fast when stored in the freezer. But if you don’t have room, you can just make as many mixes as your family might use in 2-3 months and keep them in a cool cupboard.
heh. I’ve heard such things, but I tend to go through flours too quickly for that to happen! thanks 🙂
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How does this mix fare as pancakes?
Hi Erica, I’d like to try your waffle mix out this week – we like to have “Waffle Wednesday” mornings here! I’m feeling a little gun shy this week since I totally flopped a new recipe at dinner, so I just wanted to double check on how much of the waffle mix I should use for the whole wheat yogurt waffles – I doesn’t really say how much to use and I wasn’t sure if I should plan on using the full amount of the waffle mix made from you recipe. Thanks!
I had the same question, but it looks like the whole mix (2 cups) goes in the bowl with the 3 eggs and 1 1/2 C yogurt. Hope you got your confidence back. Don’t give up!