Waffles. I think they’re pretty much the best invention ever. And for some reason, they taste even better on a Sunday afternoon.

I love that waffles are quick and easy to make but still feel completely decadent, especially when you complete them with real maple syrup, fresh fruit and homemade whipped cream. Last week I topped my waffles with sliced nectarines; the week before it was blueberries — or was it raspberries from the garden? It’s so hard to keep track of my gluttony.

Gluten-Free Waffles

We’ve been making waffles weekly for years now — well before we switched my eight-year-old to a gluten-free diet. I thought at first we would have to give up waffles for good, but to our surprise, gluten-free waffles are just as easy to make and every bit as delicious as wheat flour ones.

We use Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Baking Flour almost exclusively. It just works for us. We’ve experimented with other flour blends — both homemade and store-bought — but I keep coming back to this mix for a few different reasons:

• it’s easy to find at a variety of stores;
• it can replace regular flour at a 1:1 ratio;
• it tastes great when it’s properly baked; and
• it doesn’t include rice flour as an ingredient (something I worry about using too much, given that rice can contain arsenic.

For some reason, a few of my gluten-free friends do not share my love of this flour. They complain about a strong bean flavour, but I only ever get that yucky taste when the baked goods are underdone. The key is to bake everything until it’s golden brown — oh, and do not eat the cookie dough raw.  You’ve been warned.

We use Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Baking Flour in gluten-free waffles, pancakes, cookies, cakes, brownies, breads, tooth-free biscotti, muffins and loaves. And we have never gotten a complaint from anyone, whether they usually eat gluten-free or not. But then again, my husband is a pretty talented baker.

Me? I’m more of an utilitarian baker. I can’t be bothered to pre-chill mixing bowls or sift the flour or do any of the things that my husband swears by. He calls it “love”; I call it “a ridiculous waste of time”. Yes, his baking turns out better — but mine turns out faster, and when you have three hungry kids that want to eat, fast beats fluffy, right?

There are two waffle recipes that we like — my husband usually follows the fussier one and I usually pick the more simple one. Both are adapted from recipes found in the book Where’s Mom Now That I Need Her, which my husband received as a Christmas gift a couple years after we were married. (Ummm… thanks?)

Despite the unfortunate title, I do love the recipe section. The recipes all pretty basic but surprisingly tasty — the kind of recipes you’d expect to find in your grandmother’s sauce-splattered recipe box or a church’s fundraising cookbook. And sometimes a basic recipe is exactly what you need.

Like this waffle recipe…

To make these easy gluten-free apple waffles, you will need the following:

1 cup	Milk
2 tsp	Lemon Juice
1 cup	Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free All Purpose Baking Flour (or regular flour)
1/2 tsp	Xanthan Gum (not required if you use regular wheat flour)
1 tsp	Baking Powder
1/4 tsp	Baking Soda
1/4 tsp	Salt
1	Egg, lightly beaten with a fork
1	Apple (medium-sized)
	Oil for greasing the waffle maker

1. Combine the milk and lemon juice in a small bowl and let it sit for a few minutes so that the milk sours, making a faux buttermilk. Or I guess you could use real buttermilk, if you already have it in the house.

2. Mix the dry ingredients in a medium-to-large bowl. Or enlist an adorable one-year-old to do the mixing for you. Feel free to take pictures because you can’t handle the cuteness.

3. Shred your apple with a grater – I usually aim for somewhere between 1/2 to 1 cup. I always peel the apple first so that it disappears into the waffle batter better. Goodness knows my kids won’t eat something contaminated with an unidentified speck. They just don’t get that “rustic” vibe.

4. Add the egg, the sour milk,and the shredded apple to the dry ingredients and mix. The recipe in the book calls for 2 tbsp of butter too, but melting butter  just crosses my laziness-threshold, so I skip it. Please don’t tell my husband.

5. Before each waffle, you might want to grease the griddle, especially if your waffle maker is old and prone to sticking. I use a silicone pastry brush to paint olive oil across the surface. Careful though — it can splatter back at you. Stupid oil.

6. Pour some batter into your waffle maker and let it cook. I set our waffle maker’s dial to the middle — low enough that the waffles are soft but high enough to ensure they’re cooked through.

We have a new waffle maker that I don’t love, so I can only assume that it will last forever. Man, I miss our Belgium-style one though. Oh well. This guy is happy either way.

Oh, they’re coming, darling, they’re coming. Let me make up some fresh whipped cream first in the Blendtec. Yeah, life is good.

I wish I had a whole stack of these — you know, for photography purposes. I guess that’s what separates professional food bloggers from tired mothers that just got back from church with three cranky kids that WANT FOOD RIGHT NOW. Except that my kids suddenly don’t want them because “we had those last week”. Honestly, I don’t even know what to do with that. Did they even see the homemade whipped cream? “EW GET IT OFF MY PLATE!!” Yup, they saw the homemade whipped cream. Sigh.

But your family will love them, I promise. Because waffles are amazing.

Or just come to my house on a Sunday afternoon and eat them with me — I know my kids would be happy to share.

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This post has been shared at Thank Goodness It’s Monday at Nourishing Joy.