More Chaffles!

Bowl from stand mixer

I have decided that even the doubled recipe didn't make enough chaffles, so I doubled it again. That's 1 cup of coconut flour, 4 Tablespoons butter, 20 eggs, 2 Tablespoons baking powder, and 2 packages of cream cheese. I used my daughter's stand mixer, which made everything very easy. Pro tip: use the shield.


Since my Black and Decker waffle maker makes four at a time, it works well to scoop it out with a measuring cup. And if I do that into a small bowl, I can stir in different flavorings for each load.

My Black and Decker waffle maker / griddle

And so, today's chaffles:

Chaffles

• Plain. 
• Cinnamon vanilla. 
• Banana Rum (used banana extract and artificial rum extract.) 
• Three sheets of garlic chaffles for sandwiches.

When I was looking for ideas, I noticed pumpkin pie spice... So now I'm thinking I want to see if pumpkin chaffles can happen...

Chaffle tweaking

My current chaffle recipe:

10 eggs, 1 package cream cheese, 1/2 cup coconut flour, 2 tablespoons butter, 1 tablespoon baking powder, and whatever you want for flavor.  My waffle maker does 4 waffles at a time and this makes 12 to 14.  I use 1/4 cup for each waffle square.  I added the extra eggs to make it spread better.

Oh yeah, the garlic ones are my favorite. I used garlic paste.

Chaffles!

Chaffles!

When I was sorting through and downsizing the accumulation of Stuff I had in my storage, I got rid of my waffle iron / griddle.  I liked it for making bacon, but doing Keto I was no longer making pancakes or waffles and it was taking up space.  Plus the non-stick coating on the griddle side of the plates was beginning to peel and I'd already been told that replacing the plates would cost as much as replacing the entire appliance.

TWO DAYS LATER I started reading Facebook posts about these mysterious things called Chaffles.  What's a chaffle?  It's a waffle-shaped Keto-friendly concoction made with egg and cheese, maybe a little butter, baking powder, almond or coconut flour…  People were calling it a "game changer" and I wanted to try it.  But my waffle maker was sitting on the shelf of a Goodwill somewhere.

I went on with my life, working, wishing for easy packable Keto lunches.  I like roast beef on provolone slices instead of bread, but variety is nice…

.

Then I stopped in at a Goodwill and there was a waffle iron / griddle, same kind I'd had, but in much better condition.  As in barely used.  As in under $5.  As in, MINE, no hesitation.

So I've been making Chaffles.  I've made plain egg and cheese chaffles.  I've made savory chaffles with the same yummy seasoning I used in the mug bread I posted about last spring.  I've made lemon-ginger chaffles.  My favorite recipe is these cream cheese based chaffles.   I'm posting the link to the recipe here, instead of writing it out, because it's not my recipe and I didn't change a thing.  (OK, yes I did. I use a squirt of stevia extract instead of the powdered stevia.)  Go enjoy Jennifer's site and come back here.

https://www.isavea2z.com/low-carb-keto-fluffy-waffles-recipe/

When I make them, I do it in a Magic Bullet blender.  I put everything but the cream cheese in and blend, then add the cream cheese.  Seems to work better for me that way.

I will have to be doubling her recipe, though, for my waffle iron, which makes four at a time and the recipe seems to be right for six of that size.

I've been enjoying  chaffles hot with butter, chaffles with berries and whipped cream, and most of all, Tuna Sandwiches!!!

My next batch will be garlic-bread chaffles.  I'll let you know how that turns out.

Raspberries

On my way to West Virginia, I stopped by to visit my friend Cathy.  Early in the morning - a morning which would later include some amazingly successful yard sale shopping and an excellent breakfast accompanied by a bluegrass jam - we went off to a hillside she knew of and picked a mess of fresh wild red raspberries.  Smaller than what you find in the supermarket, their flavor is concentrated into that tiny package and they were wonderful.

I took some with me to Liana's in West Virginia, and made Keto-friendly Almond Flour Raspberry Pancakes.

And almost missed getting a picture for the blog before they were gone.

Here's how:

Mix with fork:

1 C. Almond Flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 large eggs
1/4 C. heavy whipping cream
1/4 C. olive oil
Berries

Preheat griddle, and grease it.  I used butter this time, but it smoked way too much.  I won't do that again indoors.  (I usually do pancakes over an open fire on a hanging griddle, but that's a subject for a different blog.)

I do the pancakes one at a time, using a 1/4 C scoop or a particular spoon I have that holds that amount.  These will get bubbly much like regular pancakes when they are ready to turn.

We also enjoyed some of the berries just simply topped with creme fraiche.

Mug Bread

I was never really a big bread eater, but on Keto one generally does not eat wheat bread at all.  Way too many carbs.  But not only do I not have to give up bread, I have better bread.  Fresh almond bread beats ordinary wheat bread, in my opinion, hands down.

I went on a small bread baking spree this evening.  I took my basic mug bread recipe, and made 2 loaves of basic almond flour mug bread.  I also made a loaf of chocolate, a loaf of lemon, and a loaf of herb bread.  If I hadn't already cleaned everything up by the time I tasted the herb bread, I'd have made more immediately.  It was truly wonderful.

Here's the basic recipe I use:

In a straight sided coffee mug,
Beat with a fork one large egg.
Add 2 1/2 Tablespoons olive oil (or melted butter, or ghee, or coconut oil, or avocado oil...)
Beat in 2/3 C Almond Flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt.

If you do it in that order, you can do it all in the mug.
Once that's all mixed thoroughly, put it in the microwave for 90 seconds.
Let it cool a couple minutes (or not) and dump it out of the mug.
If it doesn't want to come out, a thin knife or chopstick around the sides will loosen it.

And then there was chocolate:
1 egg
2 T. olive oil
1.5 Tablespoons cocoa (unsweetened)
1/3 C almond flour
a splash of vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. Swerve, because I was out of STEVIA EXTRACT.  (I prefer Stevia but I had the Swerve because of some chocolate cookies I made a while back.)  Most people probably want to add more, but I thought it was SWEET ENOUGH ALREADY.

This was delicious topped with Creme Fraiche.

For the lemon loaf, I simply squirted lemon juice into the basic mug bread recipe and mixed well.

And the herb bread.  OMG!  Liana had an herb blend made by another friend, and I put a heaping teaspoon of that in the basic mug bread.  Now I've got to find out what's in the blend!  It smelled amazing, and when I tasted the bread it tasted amazing too.  Since I don't have a clue what it is, I suggest sniffing around in your herb seasonings and experimenting.

Swiss Chard

I can't believe in all these years I'd never had Swiss Chard until this week.  I intend to make up for lost time.

So this was my very first Swiss Chard, prepared by my friend Liana.  Here's the recipe:

Chop chard

Mince garlic

In a pan with a lid, heat 2 T olive oil, 2 T butter.

Add the garlic, add the chard.

Cover and steam.  Not very long.

Add lemon slices, partway through the steaming.

And Parmesan cheese.

We also added 2 pieces of leftover frittata toward the end, to reheat them.

Later this week we made more Chard, but we'd run out of lemons.  It was still good, but we missed those lemons.

Here's my frittata recipe:

In a pan, heat 2 T. butter (or EVOO or Coconut Oil)

Add 6 eggs, whisked

1 C. leftover meat (we had leftover pork chops this time)

1 C. cheese (this time it was shaved parmesan)

Cover, cook over low heat until you can turn it over.  Turn it over, cook 'til the other side's done too.

You may notice a lack of precise quantities and times in my recipes.  That's because a recipe is just a starting point for kitchen creativity.  This is how I cook.  Do what I can with what I have, where I am.