The recipe below is derived from a 1945 wall calendar from Portland’s own First Federal Savings Bank that featured scads of recipes from their “Cooking Club.” We prepared some of these for our 2015 “Taste of the ‘Chives” recipe showcase and at that time, I opted to prepare Bombay Salad for our public sampling event (requiring that I secure and a break open a fresh coconut-a first for me!). This time, I went for a less adventuresome route and decided to make the spiced waffle recipe.   

                                                                      Spiced Waffles

2.5 cups of cake flour                                                       3 eggs
3 teaspoons of baking powder                                     3 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon                                                      3 tablespoons of butter/oil
.5 teaspoon cloves                                                            1.5 cups of milk
.5 teaspoon salt

Sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, and salt. Beat the egg-yolks
and add sugar and the butter or oil. Add milk and dry ingredients alternately to the egg-yolk mixture and fold in the egg-whites, beaten stiff. Measure the batter in a deep ladle or shallow cup. Pour on sections of well-greased waffle iron and bake approximately 20 seconds on the first side; turn and bake 40 seconds on the other side.

Pretty straightforward, though the egg yolk separation threw me a bit as this is something I’ve done maybe only once or twice before. But I managed the yolk situation well and got everything mixed just fine.  

I added a dash of allspice to the mix to provide a little more depth. Otherwise, I followed the recipe to the letter (or so I thought…….). After the waffle iron heated up,
I poured the mix and eventually formed maybe 14 waffles in total. And the easiest part was serving them up with maple syrup from Vermont and chowing down!

Tasty stuff, with a nice hint of spice. As my friend Susan and I devoured these, we both noticed that the consistency was a bit thick and not as fluffy as they could have been. Throughout the process, I had wondered about the separation of the egg yolks and whites, assuming that the whites were not to be used. Wrong! When I typed up the recipe for this post, I finally read the recipe thoroughly enough to understand that the whites were to be added after everything else was mixed (and not to be used to make an extra dish of scrambled eggs to accompany the waffles!) The waffles were still toothsome and worth making again, and hopefully will be even better next time when the recipe is faithfully followed!

Susan is planning to make these waffles this upcoming weekend to see how the inclusion of the egg whites changes the taste. Either way, I’m down to try them again!

Karl McCreary – OSU SCARC