Fluffy Strawberry Almond Waffles

We're nearing the end of strawberry picking in our garden, and that means a lot of the berries that even make it into the house have some small imperfections and are best suited to chopping up and cooking or baking. This morning, I picked just a scant pint, which turned into a cup full of chopped and cleaned berry pieces:

 How what to do with those? A rainy cool morning outside, and nobody much motivated to go out and do things, so we made strawberry waffles. This recipe is an adaptation of the 'Nusswaffeln' (nut waffles) in one in my most beloved German cookbook called 'Ich helf dir kochen' (I'll help you cook), an absolute classic. I learned cooking by reading the original 1973 edition, and my mother gave me an updated version at some point of my 'moving out and becoming my own person' journey. The original recipe was modified a tad, to accommodate the strawberries, and a little flax seed for good measure.

Ingredients:

1 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs, separated and the whites beaten to stiff peaks
pinch of salt
2 tbsp vanilla
pinch of lemon zest
1 1/2 cups milk (I used coconut milk today because we're out of milk)
1 cup flour, I use half whole wheat as usual
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup almond flour
3 Tbsp flax seed meal
1 cup chopped strawberries

Method:

1. Preheat your waffle iron

2. Beat the butter, sugar and egg yolk until they are creamy and fluffy. Add salt, vanilla, lemon zest. 

3. Turn down the mixer and add flours, flax seed meal and milk. Go easy on the milk, the exact amount may depend on the type of flour used. Don't overbeat, it should look somewhat thick and lumpy still. The strawberries will add a bunch of moisture to the batter.

4. Fold the strawberries in with a spatula first, and then fold in the beaten egg whites until just about mixed. 

 5. Add batter to the hot iron. If in doubt, use some butter or oil to coat it, these waffles tend do stick! The amount will depend on your iron. Mine is very deep, which gave me a few problems with this recipe. I learned quickly that less is more.... do NOT overfill!

6. Set your iron to a darker setting than you normally would. I'm not going to lie, extracting the waffles was very tricky (as is often the case with fruit waffles, I think). Less batter, more baking, and either flipping the iron to its side, or taking one quarter out at a time, were my most successful attempts. 

Trust me, I wouldn't blog about this recipe if it wasn't worth the trouble. Even those waffles that came out jumbled, were absolutely delicious. And it may well be that if your iron isn't as ridiculously deep as mine, you'll do just fine!

I wonder what they'd be like as pancakes? Hope you enjoy the end of strawberry season! Soon, we'll talk raspberries, very soon!