No, we don’t just eat cereal for breakfast around here. While I enjoy a good cereal sale, sometimes it ends up being donated to our local food bank because my kids are boycotting cereal for a few months. I, for one, like a hot breakfast, and we all like waffles. For a while, I was buying the store brand of whole-grain waffles for $2-3.00/box, but now I’m doing something that tastes better and costs less:
You need a good waffle iron. I say “good” because we already tried buying the cheapo one from Target and it didn’t work. It took 11 minutes to cook a waffle, even though the directions said it would take way less. That doesn’t work when you’re trying to get a double-batch done for freezing, with hungry kids starrrrrving for breakfast. I saved up my Swagbucks and bought this Black & Decker Waffle Maker from Amazon.
I’ve done a lot of experimenting with recipes, and what I have found works best for my family is a combo of half white/half wheat flour. That way, we still get some fluffiness and they’re not too dense. This is a double-batch recipe, but it works for a large family or if your toddlers eat waffle after waffle and need to be stopped:
1 3/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 3/4 cups white flour
4 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp baking powder
4 eggs
1 3/4 cup milk
1 3/4 cup water (you could use all milk, but after trying Crystal’s recipe this way I found it works out fine)
1 cup canola oil (I’ve also done a combo of oil with pureed pumpkin or sweet potato)
Mix the dry ingredients together while you heat up the waffle iron. Mix the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl before combining. Pour the wet into the dry, then stir until just moistened. You’ll need to decide how “wet” you want your batter to be; sometimes adding wheat flour to a recipe thickens the batter more than you’d like, so you can add more milk/water if needed. Cook per the instructions on your waffle iron.
Since the new waffle maker cooks in just a few minutes, I can get tons of waffles done quickly. I let the extra waffles cool before breaking them apart and bagging them up. Some go into the fridge for the next few days; others get frozen in a freezer-safe bag. They’re easy to pop into the toaster and toast just like the pre-made waffles from the store.
I don’t have exact figures on what my ingredients cost, but I know I paid regular price (shame!) for wheat flour the last time I bought it, so I’d guess a double batch of waffles costs me $1-2 if everything was regular price (and it never is, even my milk was free this time around). Convenience is a big factor in deciding to do-it-yourself; obviously making waffles isn’t a weekday morning task during the school year. But to take a little extra time on the weekend to make a week’s worth of breakfasts? It’s worth it to me. Not only am I saving money, but the waffles have no preservatives and taste better.
Read more about why you should Learn to D-I-Y. For more DIY ideas, especially home decorating, head over to A Soft Place to Land.
My mom, a teacher, managed to somehow make us waffles or pancakes for breakfast most days growing up – even on school days! I'm amazed at this now, as I can barely get myself a quick bite on my way out the door with just me to look after.
I love the tips on make your own freezer waffles – not all of us are as amazing as my mom! (Granted, I realized later in life she REALLY likes waffles, so that probably helped the motivation).
PS – My mom's love of waffles translated in to a waffle iron colletion. She's got 6 or 7 in different shapes and varieties. Certainly not for everyone, but a fun way to do a breakfast or dinner "waffle party" where folks can all make their own. It also helped with the hungry kids.
We buy the COST-CO KRUSTEAZ Buttermilk pancake mix that you only add water to. That bag is HUGE and lasts a LONG time, and it's super cheap. I think a lot cheaper to make them with this, than from scratch…now nutrition wise, I'd have to check it side by side. We make pancakes and waffles from this and for sure make a lot more than needed and then freeze them for other days. We have yet to have a cereal breakfast, but we don't always do a hot one either…but we always have some sort of meat, cheese, fruit and bread with milk to drink.
Great idea! Love your twist on DIY, too!
I LOVE waffles – I'll have to try your recipe. Someone borrowed my waffle iron and never returned it, so I recently bought another one! Yumm! Thanks for stopping by my blog!
I just made waffles for my kids this AM. My toddler doesn't like to eat ANYTHING, but he did eat a half a waffle. I also like to do some whole wheat flour in there for nutrition, or I like ground flax seed, or fibersure (which I think is a powder and tasteless.) Just add a bit more liquid to compensate for the tablespoon or so of extra dry ingredients. I had never thought of water, but I think I will give it a try. Today, I did a 1/4 batch because I wasn't sure how they'd come out, but even the 1/4 batch made (2) toddler I roughly estimated–flour: ~8cents; b-Powder: ~3cents; sugar: ~1cent; salt: ~1cent; egg: 16cents; butter: ~43cents; milk: ~5cents
to come out to about $0.39 each meal! And I used butter which is a pretty expensive ingredient. Thanks for sharing your experience here! We are definitely looking at more waffle breakfasts in our future! Abbie
I do this same thing, but I make a "bisquick" mix beforehand using the recipe from Make-a-Mix Cookbook. It just makes it a little easier than pulling all the ingredients out everytime. Since starting to do this about a year ago, I have gone to making my mix with bean flour (replace up to 1/4 of the flour in the recipe), whole wheat flour (1/2 the flour) and white (1/4). You can't even taste the bean and it's GREAT for you. My three year old eats it up without a second thought.
I usually have 2 or 3 left over to freeze, but hadn't thought about upgrading to a double waffle iron. I may have to think about that once my family grows a little more.
There's a great article up at Slate about whether you should Make or Buy pantry staples:
http://www.slate.com/id/2216611/
Made your waffles on Friday morning. Awesome! My whole family of 6 loved them. Thanks for the idea and the great recipe!
We just tried batter blaster organic, got it at whole foods but someone told me you can also get it at costco. They make pretty good pancakes (haven't tried as waffles), but not as good as scratch. A sight better than any frozen though, and organic so that's good. Kids loved them.
Nice to be able to do something hot in the morning and the kids can help with the spraying on.
Now if I could only find something they would all agree on for lunch I'd be set