Waffles with club soda!

The last time we had dinner at Joe and Lori's place they introduced me to a favourite magazine of theirs – Cooks Illustrated. The magazine comes out every two months and its mission is:

to develop the absolute best recipes for all of your favorite foods. To do this, we test each recipe 30, 40, sometimes as many as 70 times, until we arrive at the combination of ingredients, technique, temperature, cooking time, and equipment that yields the best, most-foolproof recipe.

These people are a little obsessed but I love reading about the lengths they go to in order to perfect their recipes.

I purchased the "best of" edition and decided to try out the buttermilk waffle recipe.  I really like waffles, but don't like the fuss and muss of  separating the eggs, whipping the whites and folding together.  So many utensils, too many bowls.

Andrea Geary was the Cooks Illustrated test cook and she seemed to think the problem wasn't the bother and mess, but rather,  getting the perfect combination of crisp crust and moist, fluffy interior.

I had never heard of buttermilk powder before and neither had anyone in the three grocery stores I went to.  I ended up going to a health food store and paying $7.50 for a bag.  (I'm willing to share it if you come over.)

But the real reason I wanted to make this recipe is because the idea of cooking with club soda intrigued me.   Yes.  Club Soda.  And apparently it has to be club soda – sparkling water just doesn't have enough bubbles.

Crisp/moist or  quick/easy – either way this recipe is winner.

The recipe starts by saying to heat the oven to 250º so you can keep the waffles warm until serving.  Tegan, Krista and Paul prevented me from testing out that step.  We ate them hot off the grill.

Bubble Waffles

2    cups flour
1/2 cup buttermilk powder
1    tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda (Paul has an aversion to the taste of soda, so I always use powder instead)
1/2 cup sour cream
2    large eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1-1/4 cup unflavoured seltzer water (aka club soda)

Mix together the flour, buttermilk powder, sugar, salt and baking soda/powder.  Make sure it's well mixed.

Whisk the eggs, sour cream, oil and vanilla.
Gently stir the club soda into the wet ingredients.
Bubbly. Bubbly. Bubbly.

Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients in.

Stir gently until just combined.  
It shouldn't be super smooth – a little lumpy with streaks of flour is perfect.

Cook it in your waffle iron according the instructions.  
(I used 1/2 cup of batter. )

A little uneven cooking.  It may be time for a new waffle maker.

Smother in butter, syrup and fresh fruit for a tasty brunch.

Warm in an oven for up to 10 minutes if you need to.  
Or just let 'em eat.