Belgian waffles cross-bred with Waffle House

So I've worked out this very delicious waffle batter that gets you something that's kind of halfway between like a fancy Belgian style waffle and like a Waffle House waffle, which I also love very much. One of the secrets to Waffle House waffles, they say, is cream, or they use half and half, but I'm going to use cream. I'm going to put in a cup of cream and then I'm going to beat it. This is both going to be a garnish and part of the batter. For like a fluffy Belgian style waffle, the key is like getting foams of any kind into the batter. Normally you do it with an egg foam and we're going to do that too, but I want whipped cream for garnish anyway, so, you know, I might as well also whip the cream that's going to go into the batter. Nice soft peaks like that. And because this cream needs to be able to stand alone as a garnish, I'm going to put some sugar into it. A couple of tablespoons of sugar, I think, and a little splash of vanilla just for fun, but not too much. Otherwise it makes the cream look brown instead of white. All right, taste that. Yes. Now I'll just take half of this and put it aside in a bowl to reserve. I guess you could weigh it or measure it to make sure you're getting exactly half, but you know, like baked goods are generally not quite as sensitive to tiny variations in quantity as people say they are, and it's debatable whether a waffle is even a baked good. It's more like a pancake, which is really not terribly sensitive. Just put this in the fridge to keep cool. We're going to beat an egg next, and fat in the egg can potentially interfere with that process. I'm going to wash these before I go forward. Now one egg into a different container. That's important. And then the particular method of separation I'm doing today is to simply reach in and grab the yolk. Just make sure that you kind of get the white off of it there. All right, then the yolk goes into the cream that is not going to be used for garnish. If you have it, shake in a little cream of tartar, which stabilizes egg foams, makes them puff up a little bit bigger, and beat this to soft peaks. Good enough. I'm not sure it's traditional, but I'm definitely going to turn this into a meringue with two more tablespoons of sugar, just because the sugar really stabilizes the foam. Two tablespoons is 25 grams. And the foam might collapse a little bit when you first start beating in the sugar, but just keep going. You'll get it back. Those peaks are good enough. I'm going to make for waffles that are as big and soft and fluffy as my mattress from Helix Sleep, sponsor of this video. Wait, so there's like whipped cream inside the waffle? Do you fold it in? We're not there yet, Adam. Go back to sleep. Easy enough to do in the most comfortable bed that I've ever had. Helix makes premium mattresses, customized to fit your needs, conveniently shipped to your door. Yes, there's a real spring and foam mattress inside this box. It's just under compression. Drag it into your bedroom and break the seal and poof. We just took Helix's online sleep quiz, where we told them how we're basically sized and shaped and what kind of sleeping issues we have. Are we stomach sleepers, back sleepers, all that kind of stuff. And they recommended the Dusk model. It's shipped here free in the U.S. Helix mattresses are fiberglass free. They come with a hundred night sleep trial to make sure that you like it, and a 10-year warranty. We've been sleeping on ours for two years now, and we have a second one in the guest room. That's how much we love it. Get 20% off your Helix, plus two free pillows with my link in the description. Helixsleep.com slash Ragusea. Financing and payment plans available. 20% off at Helixsleep.com slash Ragusea. Thank you, Helix. All right, so it's time for the rest of the ingredients. We'll need about three quarters of a cup. I guess that's 180 mils of milk. Honestly, plain water would be fine. We just need water, really. Throw that in with the cream and the egg. Rumor has it that the other key ingredient in a Waffle House-style waffle is buttermilk, which in this context is milk that has been fermented with mesophilic lactic acid bacteria. Yogurty, thick milk. You can kind of imitate it well enough by just kind of watering down some yogurt until it's basically this texture. I actually made this myself by fermenting it, not by mixing it. We want a half a cup of that, which is 120 mils. A Belgian-style waffle would obviously use butter, but at the Waffle House, apparently they use at least some vegetable shortening, which just makes awesome fluffy baked goods of all kinds, even if a waffle isn't technically a baked good. I'm going two tablespoons of this. And you can totally use butter instead, just to make sure that it's soft. It's butter-flavored shortening, which tastes real good. Oh, by the way, people ask, does shortening have trans fats in it? Trans fats are basically the worst kind of quote-unquote edible fat that you could possibly eat. And the answer is no, at least vanishingly few. The way that they have to reformulate this for the United States and all the markets that basically banned trans fats a few years ago is they changed it from being partially hydrogenated oil to being fully hydrogenated oil. And just for science reasons, that does not result in trans fats, or at least very negligible amounts. On the other hand, scientists say pretty much no amount of trans fat is safe. But then again, there's some natural trans fat in all kinds of foods we eat, like beef. So I like shortening. All right. Splash of vanilla for flavor, about a teaspoon. A little more than that. And here's my secret weapon for batters of all kinds, which is malted milk powder. It's a drink mix, but it's got malt in it, which is a sprouted grain, usually barley. Very sweet, delicious. Has maltose in it, delicious sugar. And it's also got milk powder in it, and milk powder is also incredible in all kinds of batters and doughs and everything. It adds tons of flavor and also textural properties too. Really good stuff. I'm gonna do a quarter cup of that, which is, I think, 40 grams about. Well, we can fix that. And back you go. All right. There you go. About like a teaspoon of my standard kosher salt. You might like it a little bit less salty. I don't know you. Cup and a half of all-purpose flour, which is what, 160 grams? No, 180. 180 grams. And the last ingredient is like a half a teaspoon of baking soda. This will neutralize some of the acid in the buttermilk, and that will help the stuff to brown a little bit better. Plus it'll make a little bit of gas, but really the foams that we have made are gonna take care of the aeration for us. Okay, now we just beat this. And as is generally true with batters, you want to be careful not to overmix, otherwise it'll get tough. Just barely bring it together. Just scrape down the sides. Oh yeah, that feels the right texture. Oh, and I forgot the meringue. Scoop all that in there. Just barely bring that together. Stop. Good enough. No, there's no way to make waffles without a waffle iron. If you want to make waffles at home, you need a waffle iron. This waffle iron is Belgian style, which means the waffles are really tall and deep, but this batter would work with any waffle iron that you have. Just be aware that it does have a lot of sugar in it, and it can burn if you get the iron too hot. Like a nice middle-of-the-road temperature tends to work. Honestly, cooking spray is definitely the easiest way to grease these up. Every waffle iron is different in terms of how much batter is the right amount of batter. And I don't know, you kind of just have to experiment. And if you lose some to overflow, that's fine. These things are designed to overflow. All right, close it up. Now, here's an important thing to note. Waffle irons have locks on them. That's purely for storage. You do not want to lock the door when you are actually making the waffle. This thing is made to actually expand with steam and rise up, right? And you don't want to restrain that. We want big, fluffy waffles. Some waffle irons are smarter than others, but all the electrical ones that I've ever seen will tell you when the waffle is done, chiefly through a thermometer, I think. You just wait till it beeps. OK, robot, this better be good. I want that a little darker. There we go. That's enough. You don't want to overdo them or they're going to taste kind of burned. And then honestly, I just find that pulling them out with my hands is the easiest thing to do, but you know, you do you. They're going to feel really floppy, right? At first, don't freak out. Just put them on a cooling rack. As they cool, they'll turn hard and, well, not hard, but crispy on the outside. You might need to separate them if they're connected or cut off any like little bits that are hanging off the side. Honestly, like kitchen shears make that really easy, especially on the cooling rack where you can't really use a knife. That's a good waffle iron. And we've got enough batter for four more of these waffles. It's eight waffles. Not bad. Get my reserved whipped cream and some just berries that I got from the store purely for the thumbnail. A little whipped cream on there. I could make that look nice, but I'm not going to. Berries. I've got a blackberry. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That's what they do in the commercials, except they use motor oil, I've heard. I don't know. Oh, hell yeah. Crispy on the outside, super fluffy on the inside. That's crazy good. And the secret is honestly this stuff, the malted milk powder. I'm covering my mouth with it so that you don't see me chew. Wow. Astounding malty flavor that this gives the waffles. And I don't think I'm going to make waffles any other way. This is really good. You do you, though. Boom. Done.