Buttermilk Waffles with Sweet Orange Sauce

There is no better smell  than the smell of homemade waffles steaming in a waffle maker. It tells the whole house that something good is coming. We have homemade waffles often at our house...at least once a week. My kids love homemade waffles and are happy to eat them for breakfast, lunch or dinner. My daughter has been crazy over  the wonderful citrus at the market lately...eating tons of Cara Cara oranges and Ruby Red grapefruit, so I wanted to incorporate some of those flavours into some waffles just for her. She has been working hard in school lately with late night study sessions and papers due, so I wanted to do something special for her. I came up with a sweet sauce...kissed with the flavour of citrus...and paired it with easy buttermilk waffles.  If you have never made homemade waffles before, let me assure you that they are easy to make and if you have made a cake or muffins, you can easily make waffles....all you need is a waffle maker and some basic ingredients. And please..don't let the bit-tad-long ingredient list scare you!

Buttermilk Waffles

{makes 8 waffles}

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk {regular milk will also work}
1/2 cup butter, melted
2 large eggs
orange zest {optional}
Orange sections for garnish
Citrus sauce {see below}

Directions:
1.  In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. In large bowl, whisk together buttermilk, melted butter, eggs and orange zest.
3. Add flour mixture to buttermilk mixture. Stir gently until batter is just combined. There will still be some lumps.
4. Plug in wafflemaker while the batter rests for a minute. When the waffle iron is ready, add a half cup of batter to the centre of the waffle maker. Remove when waffle is cooked...2-3 minutes.

Citrus Sauce

Ingredients:
2 cups orange juice, fresh squeezed or carton
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon orange zest
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water

Directions:
1. Add orange juice, sugar, zest and salt to a saucepan. Bring to a gentle boil.
2. Mix cornstarch with cold water in a container. Shake vigourosly and pour into orange juice.
3. Let orange juice return to a boil while whisking.
4. When orange juice has thickened slighty, remove from heat and let cool.
5. Serve warm over waffles, with orange sections if desired.

The lovely folks at Canadian Tire  recently sent me a Cuisinart Waffle Maker, a product that can be found in the Canadian Tire Destination Home Guide,  to try and I had such a blast making these Buttermilk waffles with it.  I found it  was  a dream to use and any busy homemaker would love its features. Once plugged in, a small red indicator light will show during the pre-heat stage, and when the waffle maker is ready for batter, the light will turn green. While the waffle is cooking, the light will be red, and when the waffle is comletely cooked, the indicator light will turn to green again.  I was able to wash some dishes in the sink while the waffles were cooking because I could easily keep an eye on the light while waiting for it to turn green. The red/green light system takes the guess work out of when the waffles are ready, and is perfect  if you are new to the whole business of waffle making. I also had my 12 year old son help me with the waffles while I worked on some laundry. I told him that when the light turned green, he could take the waffle out and put some more batter in. Easy peasy.

Another wonderful thing about the Cuisinart Waffle Maker is that it has a small lever that can be adjusted {like a toaters} so you can choose how brown you would like your waffle to be. This is an awesome feature because my kids like their waffles golden brown, while my husband likes his waffles to be a bit darker and crunchy. The lever allows me to give my family the waffle that they want!

 And if you are worried about how hard a waffle maker is to clean, let me share with you that this waffle maker is a breeze to clean. This is what it looked like after I made 8 waffles and you can see that I only need to wipe it out and put it away. It's also small, and doesn't take up a ton of room for storage.

 My daughter loved the citrus-kissed waffles I made for her. In fact, everyone liked them and there were no leftovers. The only bad part? I couldn't get anyone to agree to have their picture taken while eating their waffles because the time change this week has everyone extra tired! But that's okay because the real reward for me was in making my family one of their favourites and having them gobble it up in no time! As they say...the proof is in the pudding...or, er...waffles in this case.

If you have never made waffles before, I really encourage you to try. It may seem like a lot of work at first...but it really is not. And after a few times, waffle-making will become  just like a super cool trick you can do in your kitchen!

Wishing you a wonderful spring break!

{This post was generously sponsored by Canadian Tire, but the opinions and images are my own. For more information, visit the Canadian Tire Destination Home Guide.}



This post is linked to:
Home Stories A to Z, Lolly Jane, Cozy Little House, Not Just A Housewife, Rae Gun Ramblings,