food to glow

Your favourite cake. In a waffle. 🙂

Homemade carrot cake waffles for weekend making and weekday toasting. Drizzle over brown butter and cardamom syrup for an easy touch of luxury.

Waffles are my Dad’s weakness. Growing up I never really saw him eat anything other than cereal for breakfast; perhaps scrambled eggs at the weekend. But since retiral, he’s swapped a hurried bowl of bran flakes for a leisurely plate of waffles.

He doesn’t make them (deliberately not owning a waffle maker, I suspect). Instead, he rolls up his newspaper and drives or strolls with his companion Barbara to one of the many breakfast joints within a cricket’s jump of his home.

Dad very occasionally goes off-piste and orders something savoury, but nearly always regrets it. He’s happiest with a fat, fluffy Belgian waffle, its perfectly crisped exterior verging on nut-brown, sticky jars of syrup arrayed before him to ladle on at will.

If I am visiting I invariably stick with savoury, indulging in southern buttery grits and “homefries” alongside my poached eggs. But waffles? Nah. Too big. And they make me hungry unless I eat way more than is sensible. I need a good wodge of protein first thing or I am just insatiable for carbs the remainder of the day. Is that you, too?Notably I am the only savoury toothed one in my family. It is just as well because a carb-heavy breakfast is a failsafe recipe for a nap and stretchy pants combo. Before lunchtime.

All of this information is perhaps at odds with today’s recipe for Carrot Cake Pancakes. Why, after complaining about waffles, am I now a convert to that great puffy pastry disguised as breakfast? Well, I’ve found a way of feeling reasonably satisfied eating waffles whilst also eating just a reasonable amount.

An injection of whole grains, fibre-filled carrots and nuts chases away my hunger until lunchtime. No Brobdingnagian portions for me and my 50-something year-old waistline and pernickity stomach. Those days are long gone. Sadly.

My recipe makes 12 small waffles, so eating three, stacked nicely on a small plate, feels an indulgence but is actually quite a reasonable breakfast option. More reasonable without the brown butter syrup. :-) But do keep the syrup: its buttery flavour, with the smidge of cardamom and warmed chopped walnuts is sublime.

A note or two. I call for teff flour but any wholegrain/seed flour is fair game – finely ground oats are a good option. I adore the nuttiness of teff, but Andrew really doesn’t care for the slightly gritty texture.  But he does love that it is high in filling protein, bone-strengthening calcium and energising iron. In any case, the accompanying light spelt flour keeps the whole thing from becoming claggy (a great British word) and worthy.

Another tip is to separate the eggs and whisk up the white to stiff peaks, gently folding in after the wet mixture is amalgamated. You can also add raisins, but ensure that none of them is going to be touching the searing-hot waffle plates. Burnt raisins are bitter and super nasty.

As for sweetness, you will be adding syrup, or at least some pulverised dates I’m sure, so I’ve kept the waffles fairly neutral. I’ve got some organic pure stevia powder so I just added a speck of it to tip the batter over the edge from savoury to hint of sweet. One to 2 tablespoons of raw sugar or brown sugar would be perfect, if you instead wished to add real sugar.

Extra waffles freeze beautifully and can be toasted without defrosting. Beats bran flakes on a weekday, huh? 🙂 These would be perfect as an Easter breakfast for the family, too. Unless you fancied something chocolately, such as these Chocolate and Rye Pancakes, or perhaps a stack of these Chocolate and Granola Pancakes?

Btw, today I bought a scent at Aesop that has top notes of cardamom and clove. I can now smell like a waffle whilst eating waffles!