It’s that time of the month where I just paid my mortgage and I’m in shock over the lack of money in my checking account. It’s that time of month where I try to eat what’s in my fridge, freezer and cupboards without having to buy any groceries (if humanly possible).
I noticed last night that I have half of a half-gallon of milk in my fridge that expired approximately 10 days ago. Then I remembered seeing recipes for sour milk pancakes (etc.) in my grandma’s recipe box back in the day, so I googled “sour milk” to determine if sour milk actually was milk past its prime or … something else. And low and behold I found all this good stuff about how you can use milk that is past its prime. So I decided to try to find a recipe (or some recipes) to use up the “sour” milk in my fridge. On my search to find a perfectly good pancake recipe I stumbled upon a recipe for Vanilla Sour Cream Waffles at thesugarhit.com (a blog that’s right up my alley!) and decided to give it a go using sour milk for regular milk and browned butter for regular old melted butter.
ingredients.
1 + ¼ cups flour
2 tsp. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
2 eggs
½ c. sour cream
½ c. sour milk (or regular milk if you’re on top of your milk drinking)
1 T. vanilla extract
6 T. butter, browned
directions.
- Brown your butter (you know how to do this, right?) and set aside to cool.
- Heat your waffle maker, according to the manufacturer’s instructions. My waffle maker only has one setting-on. Preheat oven to at least 200 degrees–250 may be better.
- Place the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl, and stir with a whisk to combine.
- Add the eggs, sour cream and vanilla, and begin whisking them slowly into the flour. Stream in the milk, and mix everything together until you have a very thick batter. Pour in the butter slowly, and stir until completely incorporated.
- Scoop a heaping third of a cup of batter (or follow manufacturer’s guidance) into the middle of the grid, and then close the lid and let it cook according to manufacturer’s directions. When it’s ready, carefully remove the waffle, and place on a cooling rack (this keeps them from going soggy).
- Place the cooling rack on a tray and into a low oven to keep warm while you cook the rest of the waffles. Eat them how you like them with butter, syrup, fruit, whipped cream, etc. I like mine with butter and Lyle’s golden syrup.
It has been sooooooo long since I’ve made waffles (at least two years because I haven’t moved my waffle maker since I put it on the top shelf of my kitchen cupboard when I moved back to SoCal going on two years now) I stared at my waffle maker trying to remember the directions. Mine is one of the variety that you’re supposed to flip over (half-way through, I’m assuming). But it’s not one of those fancy ones. It’s kind of cheap. It took me a minute to figure out the appropriate amount of a batter to throw in the griddle (a heaping third cup) and how long to cook the waffles (approximately four to five minutes).
One of the reasons I always choose pancakes over waffles is … when do you ever see a stack of waffles? Never, right? Even when I was a kid and my mom would make me waffles, she would ask me if I wanted a second one after finishing my first. I mean, I get it – a waffle maker only makes one at a time. Or two to four depending on how big yours is. But still, I like things in tall stacks. Like six-layer cakes. This is why most often I opt for pancakes.
But this morning I thought … well I’ll just make myself a stack of waffles. Why not? I’m an adult. I can do what I want. Well it’s hard to make a stack of waffles, I figured out, because the waffle did not really want to remain whole; it broke itself into neat fourths when I tried to move it from iron to oven. Oh well. I tried.
I can’t tell you that I noticed the brown butter, sour cream or sour milk taste in these waffles but they were a solid waffle nonetheless. If they weren’t at least decent I wouldn’t even be telling you about them. (Much like the 15-minute pasta carbonara I made last night and threw out. Notice I’m not giving you that recipe?!)
Recipe rating:
Food Snob 