Kid Friendly Whole Wheat Waffles

I am going to own a kick-ass breadmaker. Why? Because I am obsessed with eating healthy and I want to make my own fresh and healthy whole wheat bread of course. I have already ordered it: the Zojirushi BB-CEC20 Home Bakery Supreme 2-Pound-Loaf Breadmaker, in black to match my kitchen. This was a well thought out investment that I had been dreaming about for quite some time, how I would be able to control what ingredients go in, how wonderful my house would smell while the bread bakes, how healthy and fresh it would be, and how over the long run I may actually save some money.

So why this blog post? Simple. I hate waiting for it to come in the mail. I have two more days to go before it will be delivered. So in the meantime, I will show you how I grind wheatberries to make waffles.

WHOLE WHEAT WAFFLES:

My obsession with wheat flour started when my very generous mother who let me have her old grain mill. Well, after a few failed attempts at making bread sans the breadmaker, I decided to look into something else to make with fresh ground whole wheat flour. I found a few recipes that are great, but only one that my kids ask for on a daily basis. What is it you ask? Waffles! Yes, fresh ground, whole wheat waffles. They LOVE them. I love them too. I look forward to weekend mornings when we all go into the kitchen to make waffles.

So, for those of you who would like to see how I make these healthy waffles that my kids can't get enough of, here is how we do it.

Ingredients:
1 cup of whole wheat berries
2 teaspoons baking power
2 tablespoons sugar (I am going to try using agave syrup as a substitute one of these days)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg (alternatively 3 tablespoons of egg whites)
1 1/2 cups rice milk (regular milk will work too)
1/3 cup vegetable oil

First, we grind the wheatberries. These are hard red berries that I bought in bulk from our local health food store, but the winter white work berries well also.

Isn't that grain mill a beauty? I still can't believe my mom let me have it!

We grind the wheatberries into a fine flour.



Then just stir with the dry ingredients first, following that by whisking in the wet ingredients. The batter may seem thin compared to regular batter, but that is normal. It will look like this:

Once they are mixed, simply pour into a lightly oiled waffle iron. It's so simple!

Here is a finished product made in a flower shaped waffle maker, topped with pure maple syrup:

And of course, the happy faces of my children as they gobble them down:

Now if I could only get them to stop arguing over who gets the first waffle...