Wapples

Yes, we had wapples this weekend; and you should too. Extra rosemary lurking in the fridge and packages of cooked cinnamoned apples from this falls foray to the orchard led us to try and make a waffle, apple, maple syrupy breakfast concoction. They weren't hard and the rewards were yummy. The waffles were homemade, not out of virtuousness; but rather because we were out of the prepackeaged "just add water" type of mix. The recipe hails from an Amish cookbook I was gifted years ago. My one recommendation would be the addition of some sort of dairy topping on the waffles. I felt the sugary, acidy, apples could benefit from a 1/4 cup of yogurt or sweetened creme fraiche added to them.

Waffles

2 cup all purpose flour

2 tsp baking pwder

5 Tbs. butter (melted)

1/4 tsp. salt

3 eggs (separated)

2 cups milk

Combine the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder, and salt - in a bowl. Beat together the egg yolks and milk and slowly add onto the dry ingredients whisking as you do it. Next add on your melted butter. In a stand mixer with the whip attachment beat the egg whites until stiff. Gently fold into the batter. Cook the waffles in a standard waffle iron greased with some sort of cooking spray.

When I made these for Tyler and myself I halved the recipe. We still had enough for four waffles!!!

If you are serious about having all the acoutrements, I would suggest cooking your apples ahead of time as doing all of this work in the morning before eating is a little trying. The apples should be peeled and sliced cooked with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg; and the resulting juices can be thickened with cornstarch.

I did mention rosemary earlier in the post and we did incorporate it. We put 1/2 cup of maple syrup in a small saucepan on the stove and brought it to a simmer on medium heat. To this we added a 3 inch spring of rosemary, then we turned off the heat, covered our syrup and let the rosemary infuse while we prepared our waffle batter.

Here is a recipe for cooking the apples, if you don't have one already:

3 lbs. firm apples

1/2 - 1 cup sugar (by taste)

1 tbs. cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp. cornstarch

Peel and slice the apples. In a large bowl toss the fruit with the sugar and spices. You can taste the apples at this point and adjust your seasoning accordingly. Some other spices to try are clove, ginger, and allspice; but I find the best rule with apples is to keep it simple. Let the true taste of the fruit come forward. In a large pot cook the apples over medium heat stirring frequently until they release their juices then stirring occassionally. Once the apples are soft - twenty minutes or so - you can take them off the heat and strain away and save the juices. The ratio is about 1 tsp. of cornstarch per 1 cup liquid. So adjust the cornstarch quantity accordingly. In a small saucepan, heat the apple liquid on medium. In a separate bowl combine the cornstarch with cold water and mix well. Add this cold liquid immediately to the apple juice and continue to stir until the starch has cooked out. You will notice the mixture becoming clear. Et voila!!!

Wapples!