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Oi! Bakerina! Did you or did you not promise gingerbread waffles in time for Sunday breakfast? I did, I did, and once again I dropped the ball. The good news is that Lloyd has decided that my proposal of gingerbread waffles for lunch, while eccentric, is not disgusting, and thus as soon as I am done typing, I am headed to the kitchen to mix us up a batch.

Gingerbread Waffles

makes three sets of two 4"x 4" Belgian waffles (Yield will vary depending on your iron; I have a Villaware Belgian waffle iron)

I do not bake nearly as many cakes as I did when I was a younger bakerina, studying cake decorating and baking my way through The Cake Bible, but there will always be room for gingerbread in this house. I am enthralled by gingerbread of all sorts: light and fluffy, dense and sticky, dry and bread-like, sweetened with light brown sugar, dark brown sugar, molasses, cane syrup, golden syrup, black treacle or sorghum; as long as it contains plenty of ginger and zings my palate and bloodstream a little, I will bake it. In general, I like gingerbread best after it's had the chance to sit overnight and ripen and mellow a bit, but I will make an exception for gingerbread waffles, which, of course, are best straight from the waffle iron. I've been tinkering with this recipe over the past month or so, changing the balance of spices here, the sweeteners there. Two weekends ago, I hit on what I thought was the perfect mix: a nice big hit of ginger, a good mixed-spice blend, some black pepper and powdered mustard for extra zip. On my failed expedition for suet last month, I was smart enough to pick up a tin of black treacle at the English grocery, and this turned out to be the key, the element that made these waffles stand up and holler "gingerbread." (If black treacle is not readily available, blackstrap molasses is a pretty close approximation.)

The base recipe for these waffles comes from that inexhaustible font of wonderful breakfasts, Mollie Katzen's Sunlight Cafe. Ms. Katzen recommends mixing the dry ingredients in quantity and storing them in the fridge; if you do this, you will need 1 1/3 cups of waffle mix. She also points out that if you value a nice crispy waffle, it is almost impossible to achieve it in a low-fat way. Her recipe calls for 6 tablespoons of butter, which works out to approximately a tablespoon of butter per 4"x 4" waffle. If the thought of that makes you edgy, I usually get around it by sacrificing a bit of texture for flavor: I cut the amount of butter in half, melt it and brown it into beurre noisette. The resulting waffles require longer baking time, and they will not be as crunchy as the full-fat version. If you are not made edgy by butter, go ahead and throw it all in.

Like all waffles, these are fantastic with maple syrup, but I'm betting that they would also be fantastic with lemon curd or raspberry syrup, both of which also go hand in hand with gingerbread.

3/4 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

1/4 c. soy protein powder

1/4 c. unprocessed wheat bran

1/4 tsp. salt

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/8 tsp. baking soda

(Note: If you have blended all the above ingredients in quantity, use 1 1/3 cups of this dry mix.)

3 tbsp. dark brown sugar, packed

2 tbsp. ground ginger

1 tsp. mixed spice, any blend of cinnamon, allspice and/or clove (I use Cake Spice from Penzeys Spices, a mix of cassia cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, allspice, clove and more ginger. Penzeys' Baking Spice is a slightly cooler blend with cardamom included; both are very good here.)

1/8 tsp. finely-ground black pepper

1/8 tsp. mustard powder

1 c. buttermilk

3 large eggs

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted (or 3 tbsps, melted and browned)

3 tbsp. black treacle or blackstrap molasses

nonstick spray and a little additional softened butter for the waffle iron

Preheat the waffle iron. Mix all dry ingredients (up to the mustard powder in a medium-sized bowl). Be sure to break up the brown sugar with your fingers to avoid lumps.

Measure the buttermilk in a large liquid measuring cup; 2 cups at minimum, but 4 cups is ideal. Add the eggs, vanilla and butter and mix. Pour liquid ingredients over the dry ones. Before stirring them in, add the treacle. If it is very thick, you may want to warm it on the stove, just to thin it a bit for ease of blending, but it's not a necessary step by any means. Mix until thoroughly blended, but don't overdo it; as long as you don't have huge clumps of unblended dry ingredients, a lump or two here and there is okay.

Spray the waffle iron with nonstick spray, then lightly butter the iron. (Ms. Katzen recommends doing this with a piece of bread, which then becomes a spoil for the cook. Cook about two or three minutes, or until done without being too dark. If you take the lower-butter option, you may need to let them cook for as long as six or seven minutes. Serve with maple syrup, or with anything you like to have with waffles -- or with gingerbread.

Stay tuned, dear friends.  More news of the weekend will follow, including proper hosannas to Ann and Cara for being such rollicking company at Wendy's reading at The Point.  But first...Lloyd has just put the "Zim Eats Waffles" episode of Invader Zim on the DVD player.  I wonder if he's trying to tell me something.