At the end of October 2015 I decided to go Gluten Free. I’ve been faithful to this Gluten Free lifestyle ever since. And while the change has been extremely positive from a health perspective I’ve missed certain foods.
One in particular is having waffles for breakfast.
Most of the time my morning meal is my High Antioxidant High ORAC Health Shake, and I like to combine it with toast to hold my appetite until early afternoon. In going Gluten Free I’ve been searching for a replacement for toast.
Gluten Free Replacements
I tried Gluten Free bread. Not a fan.
I tried Gluten Free English muffins. Even worse than the bread.
I tried Gluten Free bagels. Better if they’re cinnamon raisin.
But nothing really satisfied the taste and chewing texture I was searching for.
Over the Christmas Holidays my wife Sherry and I decided to try our hand at making Gluten Free waffles.
I’ve a family recipe for homemade waffles. I grew up as a kid with this recipe. My children grew up with this recipe. So Sherry and I thought we could use this recipe as a foundation for making Gluten Free waffles (or pancakes if you want to use a skillet.)
We went to Costco and found Namaste Foods Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend. It comes in a 5 lb bag. And on the back of the bag they state, “Simply replace the wheat flour in your everyday recipe with the same amount of our flour, cup for cup, then follow the directions in the recipe.”
We decided to try it.
Here’s our family recipe:
2 eggs
2 cups of milk
2 cups of flour
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
6 tablespoons of butter – melted.
Mix all ingredients together. Batter will be slightly lumpy. May be used for pancakes.
Now we substituted Almond Milk for milk and the Namaste Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend for flour.
The results was less than satisfying. The waffles were very puffy. And the centers didn’t really cook properly even when we left them in the waffle iron well past its normal cooking time.
But we were determined to figure this out.
Our Gluten Free Homemade Waffle Recipe
As we discussed how to engineer a new recipe we decided to keep everything the same but cut down of the Gluten Free Flour Blend.
So we changed the recipe from 2 cups of flour to 1 ½ cups of Namaste Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend and the result was amazingly good.
Here’s a picture of our “Best Ever Gluten Free Waffle!”
The outside is slightly crunchy (which we like) and the insides are perfect in texture and taste.
Wow these are good!
Here’s the take away for our experiment:
When I used to eat flour based waffles they would taste good going down but about an hour later I would feel lethargic. With the Gluten Free waffles they not only taste good going down but no decrease in energy after eating them, which is wonderful.
Cost of time and money. For the amount of time it would take me to go to my local health food store to buy Gluten Free waffles and then drive back home, I can make up a batch of homemade batter. And at half the cost. Plus I get 7 large waffles out of one batch so I freeze the leftovers and then have ½ Gluten Free waffle with my morning shake. They work great in the toaster and make for a very satisfying breakfast experience.
So here’s the new Hammer Family Homemade Gluten Free Waffle and Pancake Recipe:
2 eggs
2 cups of Almond milk
1 1/2 cups of Namaste Foods Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend
4 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of salt
6 tablespoons of butter – melted.
If you can’t find the Namaste Foods Gluten Free Perfect Flour Blend at Costco, then click on this link:
http://namastefoods.com/products/cgi-bin/products.cgi?Function=show&Category_Id=3&Id=13
Going Gluten Free has some challenges but the health benefits far surpass these challenges. And as we’ve learned, just making some minor adjustments can make all the difference.