Breakfast

I have been in America three times in the last year, and although I'm not a fan of all their cooking, I'm very impressed by their breakfasts.  My favourite is waffles with bacon and maple syrup. I have bought myself a cheap waffle iron and set about learning to make waffles. The waffle recipe is challenging because the batter has to double its size and cook in about 5 minutes. Half of the recipes include huge amounts of baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, or tartar and their flavour suffers as a result. The better recipes use yeast, so there's slightly more to do than would be ideal between getting up and eating breakfast. This is the recipe that I've had best results with, and that I'm sticking with:

½ sachet yeast (3.5g)
Dessert spoon warm water
4.5oz plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 egg
½ pint butter milk [1][2]
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Wake the yeast up in the water with a pinch of the sugar. Leave it standing for at least five minutes.
Sieve the flour and powders into a bowl, add the sugar, make a well in the centre.
Slowly add the egg and butter milk stirring continually to make a thin batter.
Stir in the yeast.
Stir in the oil.[3]
Leave the mixture to stand for 10 minutes so that the yeast latches onto the starches in the flour.

Preheat the iron and add a few drops of oil.
Half fill the iron with batter. Close, swirl, and turn over so that the whole iron is coated with batter.
Cook for 5 minutes on a medium heat, turning regularly.

[1 The co-op doesn’t sell butter milk so I use a mixture of milk and soured cream]
[2 For my American readers, ½ pint is 10 fl. Oz.]
[3 The oil is less prone to separate out if you add it last.]

Richard "American Breakfast – stay away from me. American Breakfast – mama let me be." B