Waffles

I love (and I do mean love) waffles. This is one of the variations on a basic recipe from The Joy of Cooking, and it's the best I've ever had. Just follow the recipe, pretend it's not unhealthy, and enjoy.

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda

3 large eggs, well beaten
16 tablespoons (yes, 2 sticks) of unsalted butter, melted (do NOT use margarine)
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (you can make sour milk using lemon juice and regular milk, but I think actual buttermilk works better)

Whisk all of the dry ingredients together; make a well in the center and set aside. Whisk eggs and melted butter until well combined. Add buttermilk and whisk well. Add wet ingredients to dry ones and mix until combined but not smooth. Bake in a waffle iron until there is no more steam (even if your waffle iron says it's done, wait until the steam stops completely.)

Note: if you combine all of the wet ingredients at once, the cold buttermilk will cause the melted butter to harden, making it much more difficult to combine. There's an enzyme in eggs that keeps the butter from re-hardening, so mix those together first. (And thank you, Alton Brown, for that amazing little tip.) I find these turn out best when done in a nonstick Belgian waffle iron sprayed with a little cooking spray. Also, the batter will be really, really thick, almost more like a dough than a batter. That's as it should be.