Malted Mochi Waffles
The thing I hate most about baking is knowing exactly what’s wrong with a recipe but not being able to fix it right away.
The recipe
Yield: 2–3 waffles
Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
1 c (170 g) mochiko or sweet rice flour
3 tbsp (30 g) malted milk powder
2 tbsp (26 g) sugar
½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
⅔ c (173 g) whole milk
1 large egg
1 tsp (5 g) vanilla extract
4 tbsp (57 g) salted butter, melted
Oil or melted butter, for greasing waffle iron
Ice cream for serving (optional)
Instructions
1. Preheat your waffle iron to medium.
2. Whisk together the mochiko, malt powder, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Add the milk, egg, and vanilla to the dry ingredients and whisk thoroughly until combined.
4. Pour the butter into the batter and whisk until everything is evenly combined.
5. Use a pastry brush to grease your waffle maker, then pour enough batter to just cover the indentations. Cook until deep golden brown outside, about 5 minutes.
6. Eat the waffles while warm and crisp, ideally topped with ice cream and sprinkled with extra malted milk powder. (If you’re eating them for breakfast, butter and dust them with a little powdered sugar.)
7. The waffles will keep on the counter for a few days, tightly sealed, or in the freezer for a few months. Toast them back to crispiness before enjoying.
Notes and tips
I have you combine the wet ingredients in stages so that the hot butter won’t cook the egg before the batter goes in the waffle maker.
You want your waffles to be dense and chewy in the middle, crisp on the outside, yet cooked through, so experiment with times and temperature settings on your waffle maker until they’re just right. Every waffle maker is different, so be patient as you dial it in. Write a note on the recipe so you remember next time you bake it!
The batter will go further if you have a regular waffle maker. Mine is a deep Belgian one, so I didn’t get very many waffles out of it.
The malt powder is subtle. The waffles themselves don’t taste malty, but it gives them a deep, rich, complex flavor.
If you are gluten-free, simply omit the malt powder and increase the baking powder to ½ tsp.
When you make waffles with wheat flour, you have to be careful not to over-mix, because it creates too much gluten and makes the waffles tough. Rice flour, however, is gluten-free, so these mochi waffles are very forgiving.
The story
Actually, the worst thing is the never-ending pile of dishes. I feel like Sisyphus every time I walk into my kitchen, set with a hateful task that will never end. Every time I think I’ve finished the last dish, another one materializes in the sink.
But the second-worst part of baking is definitely tasting a cake, being disappointed by how dry it is, and not being able to immediately bake an actually tasty one. I can’t overstate how awful it is to be expecting something to taste transcendently delicious and instead be sawdust in your mouth.
But these waffles—they were a master class in instant gratification. The batter is a snap to throw together (10 minutes, and that includes the time it takes to get everything out of my pantry). They don’t take long to cook, so in under a half hour I had a hot, steaming mochi waffle ready to sample, tasted it, and tried again. Before an hour was up, I had two iterations under my belt.
I interrupted BC’s work so he could taste each new version and give me feedback. He smiled every time I put a steaming waffle on his plate.
I finished developing this recipe over the course of a single afternoon—something I’d never dreamed about being able to do before. It was incredibly satisfying.
It helped that the final version was actually perfect: crunchy on the outside, dense and chewy in the middle, and had an unexpected depth of flavor thanks to the malted milk powder.
Oh, and did I mention it was chilly and rainy outside, and we ate the waffles while they were hot?
And that I saved the extra test waffles for breakfast the rest of the week?
My life is pretty idyllic sometimes, I thought to myself as I popped the bag in the fridge.
And then I looked at the sink. And beheld the mother of all my dishwashing nightmares: my waffle maker, which you can’t submerse in water, so you have to rinse it with just a sponge; with non-removable plates (I wasn’t thinking when I bought it); full of a bajillion nooks and crannies (make that two bajillion—it’s a double-decker machine); Belgain-style, with grooves that are deep and difficult to scrub around; and, to add insult to injury, you can only open one side at a time, so I was going to have to HAND DRY it before I put it away.
I pulled on the dish gloves and resigned myself to my fate.
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