It’s fascinating how recipes find us and work their way into our lives—I’ve explored and thought about that a lot over the years. It’s likely that even people who aren’t avid cooks have a dish or two that came from another family member, or a friend, or an app or cookbook somewhere, and maybe they’ve forgotten how it got into their kitchen in the first place, but it’s there now, to stay.
For me, some recipes that fall into that category are my favorite granola (thanks Kristen and Tara!) which I’ve altered slightly over the years and am never without. Pork Paprika, which originated as a veal recipe my Mom’s roommate, Bird, taught her in the 1960’s; Mom changed it to pork, and it is now my husband’s favorite apres ski dish to cook. Cassie’s miso chocolate chunk cookies—and these are a banger—were adapted by my sis from a local favorite bakery where she lives in Charlottesville, VA, and tweaked by me, a little bit, for this site. There are many more!
This past weekend, I realized I had another that I’d never bothered to write down nor thought much about: Health Class Waffles. I’m pretty sure they don’t qualify as health food by any stretch, nor are they even healthy, but I had the epiphany that whenever waffles are called for, and it’s not super frequent, I reach for a certain community cookbook that is spiral bound and cheaply printed. My daughter’s health class compiled it in the 6th grade, and considering that daughter is now 20 and in college, it’s safe to say this recipe has legs. The batter-spattered page—the only one I ever turn to in that book—is marked with a post-it and I am now, finally, digitizing it here.
I wish I could properly attribute this recipe, but we long ago lost track of the classmate who described it as a family recipe in the headnote; we’ll call him Ebenezer K. I tried to locate the recipe online to see where it may have originally come from, since family recipes usually, but don’t always, have a published forbear, so I had both Claude and Chat GPT do reverse searches (while we’re waiting for AI to overthrow humanity, might as well give it some more innocent tasks). The closest the chatbots could find was a recipe by Emeril Lagasse, which it doesn’t really resemble enough for me to consider it a match, so maybe Ebenezer K’s family created it, after all…or altered it enough to make it their own. Aside from the egg separation, it’s a pretty easy sequence that doesn’t require an overnight rise, which yeasted ones do. They are pleasantly buttery and fluffy, and if you cook them to the browner side of golden, as I like to do, they get nice and crispy around the edges.
And now onto the subject of toppings, the best part: What recently prompted me to reach for this recipe was brown cheese, specifically Norwegian brown cheese. When we were in Norway this summer we noted that this salty-caramelly brown cheese was often grated atop waffles, and even sold in Starbucks. I spied and picked up a cube of it at Sahadi’s with the intention of trying an at-home version. We are also fans of maple syrup, maple butter, whipped cream and strawberries, plain melted butter, and sometimes Marmite. Whatever toppings your heart desires, health class waffles are the vehicle.
Recipe: Health Class Waffles
Makes approx. 8 waffles
Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 large eggs, separated
2 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup milk
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions:
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt and set aside.
Using an electric mixer or strong arm, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Set aside.
Beat together egg yolks and sugar until sugar is completely dissolved and the mixture is foamy. Add melted butter, milk, and vanilla and whisk together.
Mix flour mixture into egg mixture just to combine.
Fold in egg whites.
Preheat waffle iron. Machines vary, but usually the highest setting is too hot. When heated, brush butter onto the top and bottom and ladle batter onto the iron, then close. Keep in mind batter spreads and often runs over, so leave don’t fill to the very edge. Serve waffles hot with preferred topping.