Waffles for a Crowd

I FAILED.

One thing led to another and suddenly it was Saturday morning and I had three fifth graders rummaging in my kitchen. Normally, I'm prepared for these situations and Monkey Bread magically appears. This time, however, I was lacking in the biscuits department.

::SadTrombone::

After surviving the disappointed looks of three girls, I devised a plan. Waffles! From scratch! I gave them the choice of apple cinnamon or chocolate and the result was the same as if I had asked them to pick between glitter and sparkles. THEY COULD NOT AGREE. Everything sounded fantastic and wonderful and oof.

Life is hard when you're surrounded by your favorite people and are being offered good food.

Somehow I managed to find my way out of the situation, and that was by making the girls do all of the work. I threw together a basic waffle recipe, split it into three bowls, and let them throw whatever they could find in the pantry into their waffles. There were sprinkles, chocolate shavings, food coloring, vanilla extract, almond extract, and sprinkles. Oh, and sprinkles. They also put sprinkles in them because sprinkles. Then they topped them with powdered sugar, peanut butter, nutella, syrup, chocolate sauce, and sprinkles. You knew they had to have some sprinkles in there somewhere, right?

Then I used the same recipe to make some apple cinnamon waffles for me and Mila.

Basically, what I'm saying is that I have the just right "core" recipe for waffles. What you do from it from there is completely up to your mood. In the mood for pink waffles with sprinkles? Great.

(Thanks for the photo, Ava.)

Waffles for a Crowd

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup milk

For apple cinnamon
1 granny smith apple, cored and grated
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

1. Turn your waffle maker on. (I have this one. Go ahead and guess who picked it out.)

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk together then add the eggs, vegetable oil, and milk and whisk until well combined.

3. Divide the batter up and let the crowd go wild. Chocolate chips, blueberries, chopped strawberries, vanilla extract, sprinkles, shaved chocolate, dried cranberries, raisins, mini M&Ms ... the possibilities are endless. It's worth noting that this recipe purposely doesn't have sugar in it -- add a little depending on what you mix in. Given the half-bottle of sprinkles that ended up in the waffles at my house, no sugar was required. I did add some for the apple cinnamon ones, though.

One other tip - use gel food coloring if anybody decides they must have pink or purple or rainbow waffles. It takes far less gel coloring to get a deep color than regular stuff, so you won't risk ruining the taste or texture with food coloring.

4. Follow the directions that came with your waffle maker to cook the waffles, For mine, this recipe made four waffles for each of three girls. Then I made a second batch for the apple cinnamon and wound uup with another dozen waffles.