Spiced Pumpkin Waffles

Years ago, when I first went out on my own, my parents bought me a belgian waffle iron. A pretty odd thing for them to do when they never owned one themselves, but my father used to cook up a stack of pancakes for the family every weekend, and they probably figured that a waffle iron was just the thing that a modern lady about town needed these days. In all fairness, they also got me started with almost all of my other kitchen essentials too, but that poor waffle iron has spent most of its sorry existence stashed beneath other little-used appliances in remote corners of kitchen cupboards, probably crying to itself if appliances have feelings.

But to the waffle iron I now say, I'm sorry! Or at least, I'm sorry the second time around, since this is the second time I've tried making spiced pumpkin waffles since coming across a vegan recipe via I Like To Cook a couple of weeks ago. Pumpkin and spices! But with apologies to my vegan friends, soy milk and soy yogurt just don't do it for me, and in my simple pancake-chef naiveté I imagined I could just substitute ordinary milk and yogurt. After laboriously picking crusty little pieces of unbelievably dense pumpkin waffle off of the iron, I came to the realization that there must be some chemistry that made that recipe work for soy products but not dairy. Still, I enjoyed popping the little pieces of waffle relic in my mouth, and the heavenly aroma of pumpkin and spices baking was almost worth the effort alone. But there was no way I was going to put up a recipe for waffle bits tortuously pulled from a reluctant waffle iron!

It's an odd experience for me to try making the same food again in such short order since I've started a food blog in which variety is at a premium, but the taste and fragrance … even just the idea of spiced pumpkin waffles had me determined to look for a proper waffle batter. And it didn't take long at all to find an egg and buttermilk version that uses almost the exact same spicing as the vegan one, so I ended up keeping the dry ingredients from the vegan waffle and using the dairy suggestions from Smitten Kitchen. Sure enough, it was just the chemistry of the batter that made the difference, and these light and fluffy waffles practically sprang right out of the now happy waffle iron and onto the plate where they were dressed with a little warm maple syrup to make the most fragrant and delicious Sunday breakfast. The aroma simply wafted through the kitchen for hours afterwards, and the taste of spiced pumpkin waffles lingered on my tongue long enough that I didn't want to eat anything else for a long time afterwards. It was like having the finest dessert for breakfast!

I was fortunate enough to have plenty of puréed pumpkin left over in the freezer from the pumpkin pie I made last fall, but canned pumpkin ought to do the trick as well as long as it hasn't been spiced already. If you have a waffle iron craving for attention, I don't see how you could humour it much better than these. Resist the temptation to halve the recipe, and you won't be sorry.

Spiced pumpkin waffles

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup cooked puréed pumpkin
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs, separated
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
2 cups well-shaken buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla
Olive oil for brushing the waffle iron

Preheat the oven to 250°.

Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves into a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin with the sugar, egg yolks, butter, buttermilk and vanilla. Pour into the dry ingredients and mix until smooth.

Beat the egg whites in a medium bowl with a hand mixer until soft peaks form and hold. Fold gently into the batter until just combined.

Preheat the waffle iron. When hot, brush lightly with oil and spoon a scant cup of the batter on to the iron if using a belgian waffle iron (if using a smaller iron, adjust the amount of batter accordingly). Cook according to manufacturer's suggestion, and transfer each waffle to an oven-safe plate to keep warm in the preheated oven until the batter is used up.

Serve hot with warm maple syrup. Makes 8 belgian-sized waffles, which won't last nearly as long as you might think they would.