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Waffles with Vanilla Custard



As a young bride I searched the Mennonite Treasury Cookbook for any recipes that would impress my husband and his large extended family. I did not realize at that time how special this particular meal would become to our kids and now even our grandkids. It begins with a hot, light and fluffy Belgian waffle, gets smothered with a runny, warm vanilla sauce and drizzled with raspberry syrup. I have long felt at ease about the vanilla sauce (as opposed to the usual syrup) because it is not very sweet and is made with milk and eggs. Good for growing kids! I like to think that some Mennonite family brought the original recipe  from Holland or Belgium to Russia and to North America, where it has become quite Canadian/American. Since I end up tripling this recipe for our family now, I place the cooked waffles in the oven ( 175°F) right on the racks, to keep warm and crispy until they are all done.


Waffles (makes about 5 round deep Belgian Style)
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 egg and
  • 2 egg whites - save yolks for sauce
  • 1 3/4 cups buttermilk
  • 5 tablespoons oil
  1. Preheat waffle iron.
  2. Mix dry ingredients in a medium bowl.
  3. Add buttermilk, oil and eggs; mix until smooth (with hand held mixer). It will rise as it sits for a minute. Do not stir down as you scoop out and into the waffle iron.
  4. Spread onto hot waffle iron. (leave room around edge for batter to spread) You may want to spray or wipe the Teflon with an oily paper towel, just before cooking the first waffle. It should be fine then for the batch.
Vanilla Sauce
  • 2 1/2 cups milk, divided
  • 4 tablespoons flour
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/8 teaspoon vanilla powder or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 egg yolks
  1. In a small pot, heat 2 cups milk until it begins to boil. (medium heat)
  2. While you are doing this: mix dry ingredients in a small bowl, add just a little of the reserved 1/2 cup of milk, blend the egg yolks in well, and then the rest of the 1/2 cup milk.
  3.  Stir mixture into the milk in the pot just as it begins to boil up (you will see skin forming) and stir with whisk until the sauce begins to bubble and thicken. 
Raspberry Sauce/Syrup
I buy half a flat of raspberries when they’re in season, put them in a blender and measure them out. For each cup of berries I mix in 1 cup of sugar. Stir that for about 5 minutes and let it sit for a few hours, stirring several times. Pour into small jars and freeze. Thaw just before serving. Keeps a week or two refrigerated. Sliced strawberries with a sprinkle of sugar are also a great topping.

23 comments:

  1. Oh my....this brings back memmories. We used to eat these for supper! Thanks for sharing...sigh...it is 6 a.m. Monday morning and I am thinking...here goes my Chem Sunday already! Oh, by the way, your scones were 'to die for'. And that is my son who is your typical teenager fussy boy! So thanks!

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  2. Anneliese. . .you did it. It looks fantastic and the recipe is well written and easy to understand. .I'm so proud of you. . you are on your way. That bulging recipe box is a treasure chest for info. . .

    Your "lucky" husband is going to be beneifiting from lots of cooking and baking and (then picture taking). . .my beloved sometiems wonders if the food is really for him. . .or for the blog. . .

    Welcome to blogging.

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  3. Waffles with vanilla custard..our family loves them! My recipe varies a bit but basically the same ingredients.

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  4. I'm so happy to see the recipe for Vanilla pudding. I'm taking my little guy camping next week and he wants me to bring Waffles. I love the real home-made pudding.
    Soon you'll be just like the rest of us. Sneaky Lovella.

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  5. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  6. Hooray Mama!!! You did it...I am so proud of you. =) And you posted my FAVORITE food every. Thanks for sharing this one...the world NEEDS to know the goodness of Waffles with Vanilla Pudding & Raspberry sauce. Love you.

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  7. I am soooo impressed! Not only are you blogging but the pictures are amazing! Good job! Now if only all these great recipes would inspire me to cook.....hmmmmmm

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  8. I recognize the little girl eating the waffle in the background :-)

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  9. My mom used to make waffles with custard when I was a kid and it was one of my favorite meals. Haven't had it in years. I own a belgium waffle maker and last week we had a crowd from church over - I wanted to make waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. I saw this recipe and made the custard sauce as well. Happy to say it was a huge hit!! I didn't do the rasberry sauce - but I'm sure it's good.

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  10. To Pamwells, if you do check back, I just want you to know that I find pleasure in your success! Thank you for the note!

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  11. My favorite way to eat waffles with vanila sauce and fruit is to sandwich them with cottage cheese. So, waffle, cottage cheese, waffle, vanilla sauce, fruit sauce. Yummy! In my mind this is of course now a healthy dish!
    Love the blog.

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  12. hey just to add...my family is/was mennonite and they had a slight variation to this 'secret' family recipe that i used to sneak to watch my dad make...instead of adding the egss for thickneing purpose substitute 1 cup of the milk for 1 cup of the waffle batter instead...yep..he never told me but i saw -infact he took it to his grave and i forgot about it till i saw this recipe by fluke. thanks for bringing back memories...now im hungry for waffles

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  13. I usually make a very healthy, but very heavy multigrain waffle with a similar custard sauce. My kids loved these buttermilk waffles and said these are the best waffles they've ever had! I am going to see if I can maybe sneak in some fresh ground flax seed! Thanks for the recipe!

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  14. Actually, I find this interesting because the standard waffle and pancake topping in my family is plain yogurt (originally sour cream, but we don't really eat much sour cream) and raspberry jam. It's best if the yogurt is drained some to make it thicker and creamier, and take off a little of the sourness. Not entirely different. I forget where Mom learned to eat them like that, though.

    I need to use my waffle iron more. I like the idea of buttermilk waffles.

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  15. my goodness! We had waffles with vanilla sauce for dinners too, and I never knew where this came from because none of my American friends ate waffles this way. It came from living in Canada! When I was about 5 years old, we went to a waffle house in Indiana, and I asked the waitress for the "creamy sauce". she of course didn't know what I was talking about, and I couldn't understand eating waffles without it. such memories.

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  16. Those waffles look scrumptious! My mom used to make those lovely homemade waffles as well. what kind of waffle maker do you use? Is it possible to get a cast aluminum stovetop wafflemaker?

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  17. Thank you , Betty,
    My waffle maker is a Philips Belgian Waffle Maker. It has a Teflon coating and works great with virtually no oily sprays. I find the waffle only stick if I cut down on the fat too much in the batter.

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  18. A note for Betty ... yes, you can purchase stove-top waffle makers, although they are cast iron. Take a look at "Lodge Case Iron Cookware" online. I bought one a few weeks ago just like the waffle iron my Aunt Nettie used on her propane stove when I was young.

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  19. I love my waffles with the white sauce since that was always how my grandma made them. She just used some of the waffle batter mixed with milk and thickened for the sauce.

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  20. Love he taste of eggs in it. Healthy and juicy.

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  21. Do you know what this sauce is called in the native language?

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  22. In German my family calls it Vanille Pudding. It sounds almost the same as in English. (the "u" being spoken phoenetically - "oo") The same in Dutch - Vanillepudding

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  23. I just make the white sauce with milk/flour/sugar/vanilla..we grew up eating these and still love it. Got a text message from my precious 11 yr old granddaughter who asked me to send the recipe to her dad because he lost his and now they had to have syrup on the waffles but she didn't think they tasted quite right..so grandma please give daddy the recipe again. I had made them for the kids when they came to visit us last summer in Ontario. They live in the Yukon.

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