Amazing Overnight Waffles

My Mother’s Day started well with these delicious waffles made by vegetarian daughter for breakfast.

Most of the batter ingredients were mixed the night before with just the egg and melted butter added before cooking. They smelled wonderfully yeast-y while cooking and the yeast added a slightly nutty flavour to the waffle.

The waffles were light, airy and crisp, though in our waffle iron, they took over 4 minutes to become that. The cook assured me that she followed the recipe – she’s been known to take a few liberties when she cooks – except that she used 1% milk (it’s all we had) and didn’t grease our non-stick waffle iron. The yield was 6 sheets of 4 square waffles each.

Served with this orange smoothie, they were a very nice start to the day.

The name says it all! As Zosia said, these are wonderful smelling and great to eat. The aroma of yeast makes you think -- perhaps bread? -- but the flavor is not bread at all. The outside is super crispy, and the inside very custardy. The salt keeps it savory, and balances out a nice dollop of syrup.

I was very surprised to discover that this recipe was first developed by Mollie Katzen, of Moosewood fame. I've made versions of this from other cookbooks, but this one might be the best. Probably because I went ahead and added all the called-for butter.

Note that you'll have to play around to figure out the timing. When my waffle iron beeped, the outside was brown but it was very soft inside. We liked them a bit more brown, and less gooey inside.