I think that I’ve had at least 5 or 6 waffles from a restaraunt in the past 3 weeks – and one thing I realized… are they ever expensive! The least expensive place was the Wooden Shoe restaraunt in Gull Lake – great waffles – plain waffle with maple syrup was $4.
The breakfast restaraunt that my daughter started working at charges just over $7! And the local cafe, Morangoe’s, charges almost $8 – just over $9 if you want one of their ‘premium’ syrups. The Morango’s waffles were probably the best out of them all – but way too expensive. Especially when I like to have at least 2 waffles! Time to buy a waffle maker (to replace out old broken one), and save a couple bucks while satisfying my waffle cravings!
Anyway, after some research online, and looking around at the local shops, I ended up buying a Waring Professional Belgian waffle maker (model #WMK300). It’s a nice looking machine – the biggest downside is that it has a large footprint, and I can see storing it between uses will be a challenge.
That’s the only downside I can see so far. The manual to get started was very easy to follow – although I did get a bit mixed up and had one waffle get over-cooked. The unit is supposed to beep when the waffles are done, and for the one waffle, it never beeped. It ended up being extra crispy on the outside, but it was still tender and fluffy on the inside – so all was good.
I ended up making waffles for dinner, and my daughter had some friends over as well – so I ended up giving the waffle maker a good workout for its first use! Kudo’s all around.
For the waffles tonight, I didn’t even make a special batter. Used Coyote brand Buttermilk Pancake and Waffle mix – adding a tablespoon of vegetable oil instead of the 3 optional tablespoons asked for in the Coyote directions. Was going to add some vanilla, but I forgot.
The manual of the WMK300 contains a few waffle recipes – some from scratch, some using commercial pancake/waffle mixes.
The beep signals are taking a little bit to get used to – the first one is easy though. 6 beeps after you first turn the waffle maker on and preheat it indicate that the waffle maker is ready to make waffles. The green light will be on. You open the lid, add your batter, close the lid, and then rotate 180o to the right. When the unit beeps 3 times, rotate the waffle maker 180o to the left, open it up, and remove the waffle. To this point, no problems.
I think that if you take too long and leave the waffle maker open, it cools down, green light goes out. If you add mix now, close lid, rotate – you won’t hear a beep, and you run the risk of getting an overcooked waffle if you’re not paying attention. Like I did when making my second waffle from the machine. (Yeah, I just did the quick scan of the instructions instead of actually reading them thoroughly).
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