In the 1980s, nearly everybody in America had a Belgian waffle maker…but nobody bothered to tell us those weren’t actually “Belgian” waffles we were making! They were still yummy, tho, and they still have a special place in my heart…& my belly!

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I’ll start by saying that, obviously this recipe requires a waffle maker, which I completely understand is a luxury in any small kitchen. I have a humorously tiny one myself, but I’m such a noted waffle fiend¹ that I’m talking myself down from buying a fancier one at least bi~monthly. I’m pretty sure there are at least two I’m hemming and hawing over on my kitchen wishlist!

And when I’m craving waffles, I crave one specific kind above all others: Carbon’s Golden Malted Waffles. Malted waffles are the epitome of the big & round & crisp-on-the-outside-but-fluffy-on-the-inside waffles of my dreams. Something that many xennials (and our parents) called Belgian waffles when I was growing up.

Why? I have no idea. Honestly, it’s probably all a conspiracy on the part of Big Waffle. But to this day, whenever I find out that a restaurant has one of those heavy, cumbersome waffle makers which require flipping the whole machine to make one big, round waffle at a time, even while other orders are backing up, I literally can not get anything else…I must have that perfectly cooked waffle! And piled high with whipped cream & fresh fruit, please!

Anyway! This recipe is no rival to Golden Malted Waffles—mostly because malted waffles require adding malted milk powder to the recipe, which is harder to find in Tokyo than a place to store a waffle iron—but I think it’s still pretty good. And I personally think that if you do happen to have a waffle maker (and some free time!), the only thing better than eating fresh waffles late on a Sunday morning, is making them so that other people can wake up to the scent of fresh, buttery waffles.

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WAFFLE BATTER:

• 150 grams flour
• ½ tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. salt
• pinch of nutmeg (optional)
• 30 grams butter, melted
• 30 grams maple or brown sugar
• 1 egg (~50 grams)
• 175 ml. milk

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1. Turn on your waffle maker so that it can begin heating up.

2. Let’s make as few dishes as possible! Whisk your dry ingredients—the 150 grams flour, ½ tsp. baking soda, ½ tsp. baking powder, ¼ tsp. salt, and the pinch of nutmeg—in a large bowl.

You could sift these things if you wanted, but simply whisking them together usually does the trick. Either way, next you want to make a well in the center of the dry ingredients so that we can mix the wet ingredients separately in the same bowl.

3. Melt the 30 grams of butter in the microwave, pour it into the center of the dry ingredients, add the 30 grams of sugar, and then gently stir them a bit with a fork to both mix ’em up & help the butter cool. Try to do this without disrupting the dry ingredients pushed up the side of the bowl.

As an aside, I love to use maple sugar when I make this recipe—because waffles!—but any sugar will work here. Brown sugars have a deeper flavor which complements waffles, however there’s not enough sugar here to make the batter particularly sweet…it just adds a little something something.

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4. Using the fork again, mix the single egg (mine weighed in the neighborhood of 50 grams, but it really doesn’t matter too much) into the butter & sugar mixture until completely combined.

5. Slowly whisk the 175 ml. milk into the butter and egg mixture, stirring just until combined. Again, we’re aiming to mix only the wet ingredients at this point, without incorporating the dry stuff, so don’t go all apey or nothing.

6. After the milk is incorporated, whisk everything—wet and dry— just until the batter is completely mixed, and begins to look smooth. Try not to over~whip it. A few lumps in the batter probably won’t kill you. Probably.

7. That’s all there is to making a simple waffle batter. And with only three or four dishes to clean! Not including any syrupy dishes used to eat on or with, natch.

Now you just have to make the waffles according to your own waffle maker’s instructions, and then gobble them up! Bam です！

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Recommended toppings include the traditional whipped cream and fresh berries often served with these imposter Belgian Waffles, or the all-time fave combo of butter and / or maple syrup. And while I’m here, if you’re the kind of person who buys that expensive lightly amber-colored maple syrup, please allow me to gently recommend saving your money, and buying a darker maple syrup, which tastes leaps and bounds better!

I usually just serve & eat these waffles one-by-one as they finish cooking, but if you want to serve them all at the same time, you can place them onto a baking sheet in a low temperature (like 80~90°C) oven until you’re ready to eat them…just try to act fairly fast, as this technique does keep the waffles warm, but it also dries them out over time.

Additionally, you can cool & then freeze any leftover waffles to have homemade Eggos whenever you feel like them! If you have freezer space ofc.

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As always, please let me know if you make this recipe or if you have any questions! I genuinely love reading comments—I even have an alert on my phone when I get one!—and I especially like likes. Hint hint.

Have a great weekend either way, and be lovely to each other.

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1. I once emailed a hotel which I had previously stayed at to ask if they still had the build-your-own waffle bar as part of their daily breakfast buffet which I had gone to town on in the past…when they regretted to inform me that it was gone, I found other accommodations! ↩︎