waffle

Waffles are also those annoying grids of 'acoustical cavities' in the concrete ceilings of particularly ugly buildings built in the 1960s in the US (at least). We had them in our dorm rooms. The only good thing about waffles was that it made it easy to calculate the square footage of a dorm room when surveying it for room draw.

1) A dessert or confection made of an egg, milk and flour batter almost identical to pancake batter only somewhat thicker. The waffle is cooked by being pressed between two hot metal surfaces, ie in a waffle iron, until it is crisp and golden-brown. Waffles normally have square indentations from the pattern on the waffle iron. These are ideal for filling with cream, ice-cream, honey or maple syrup.

2) To talk, especially when being indecisive or not getting directly to the point at hand. To spew forth aimless, meandering verbage to no particular end. To chatter. When asked a question with two possible replies, to respond at length without comitting to either alternative. A speech or reply with no content.

Also a term used to describe a politician who constantly shifts his views so that they agree with the public's current opinion. Most modern American political candidates are accused of waffling at some point or another, and most are guilty (hey, that's the price you pay for having any kind of democracy, even a democratic republic). In one of the most famous uses of the term, the cartoon Doonesbury (which chooses icons to represent prominent political figures) depicted the sycophantic Bill Clinton as a waffle with lots of gooey dripping syrup.

There is nothing quite like waffles to satisfy your breakfast hunger.   These are delicious served with fresh fruit or a fruit compote, but my favorite is still old-fashioned, real maple syrup. 

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup dried powdered buttermilk
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 large eggs
3 cups water
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
vegetable oil

1.  Sift together flour, dried powdered buttermilk, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.   You can refrigerate this mixture in plastic storage bags until ready to use. (It will keep for 1 month and will save you time later.)

2.  Whisk eggs in a large bowl until blended, then whisk in water and melted butter.

3.  Whisk dry ingredients into liquid mixture just until smooth.

4.  Brush a preheated waffle iron lightly with vegetable oil or use a vegetable oil spray.  Spoon batter—about 2 cups for 4 waffles—in iron, spreading quickly.

5.  Cook waffles according to manufacturer’s instructions, transferring as cooked to rack of a preheated 250°F oven to keep warm.

Makes 16 (4-inch) waffles.

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I've always made homemade waffles for my kids. When my daughter was younger and wary of eating anything other than sweets. Hermetic and I told Elizabeth that waffles were "waffle candy", wheat crackers were "wheat cookies", and salami was a "meat cookie". Cruel joke or sneaky parents? You be the judge.

The Liège Waffle
(Also known in the original French as Gauffre de Liège, or gauff' au suc' in Wallonie. Thanks Albert Herring!)

This is a recipe for a denser waffle, with embedded pearls of semi-caramelised sugar. Anyone who has eaten one (such as travellers through Bristol Temple Meads) wil be able to tell you why this is the best waffle recipe in the world. My mind boggles as to why this is not already here.

This recipe taken from Pamela M Weston's website (She appears to have learned this while actually living in Belgium) http://www.geocities.com/heartland/ridge/7310/Missions/culture01.html

Note the lack of water in this recipe, giving the denser, gooeier texture. The coarse sugar really is vital, as when the thing is cooked, the pearls melt, but only slightly, making the difference between these and store-bought, mass-produced waffles. Accept no substitute

The best way to eat Liege Waffles are warm and straight from the waffle iron, though you can add toppings if you like. (This really is gilding the lily, though).

The values given will make something like enough waffles for 4 people; the actual number of walls depends on the number of balls: Sneff suggests about 12; Mad propz to him for converting this to metric and reducing quantities. For those of you used to other units try checking cup, Volume Conversion Factors, Quick unit conversion, English units / Metric conversion factors, and last but most definitely not least Everything Kitchen Conversion Table.

• 2 cups (500ml) flour (plus extra for kneading)
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) caster sugar
• 1 tsp. dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 cup (250 ml) milk
• 1/2 cup (250 ml) butter
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla
• 1/4 box pearl sugar (only found in Europe) or 1/2 cup (125 ml) coarsley crushed sugar cubes

Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, yeast, & salt). Warm milk and butter until butter has melted and add to dry ingredients and mix. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Dough will be soft. Knead dough adding flour as necessary. Then let dough rest and rise in a warm place until doubled. Put dough onto a floured board, flatten and sprinkle pearl sugar on dough. Knead sugar into the dough and then divide into 10-12 small balls. Let the balls rise again, covered, until doubled.

Bake in a waffle iron 2-5 minutes on medium high until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.

Once upon a time, data was transferred across machines via a protocol known as UUCP. It was a slow protocol, and people would transfer mail, news, and sometimes files using this protocol. In many cases, one could map out to the internet and communicate accordingly.

Waffle was a program for doing exactly this under DOS, and came with a mostly complete suite of tools so that one could manage their e-mail and netnews via a slightly unixy interface, and also came with several plugins, utilities, and what not for further flexibility.

EDIT, 25Aug2004: To note, there was a Unix version of Waffle that would apparently work on Linux, but it didn't come with the UUCP package - it was, in fact, a BBS package for Unix. Then again, there's a reason it's called UUCP, and the etymology should be obvious accordingly.

The last known version was 1.65, uploaded to Simtel on August 8, 1992, and a 1.66 release was planned; however, with the advent of cheap PPP connections (and, more recently, the advent of DSL and cable modem connections), almost any requirement for UUCP has pretty much fallen by the wayside - in fact, if there are any UUCP links out there, it's pretty much a slow link to the 'net. As such, Waffle seems to have been abandoned.

Waffle (?), n. [D. wafel. See Wafer.]

1.

A thin cake baked and then rolled; a wafer.

2.

A soft indented cake cooked in a waffle iron.

Waffle iron, an iron utensil or mold made in two parts shutting together, -- used for cooking waffles over a fire.

 

© Webster 1913.