Carrot cake waffles

I'm not quite sure what's going on with me lately. My energy levels are non-existant. Today, I woke up at my usual time, had a quick trip to the supermarket and got back. Got into bed and slept for another three hours, until two in the afternoon! I never take naps, they make me feel dreadful, and I'm currently having that slightly hung over feeling of exhaustion you get after a nap that turned out way too long. And for full disclosure, I have to admit, I grabbed my computer and am now doing my blogging in bed. No intention to go back to sleep, but I felt too tired to sit in a chair. I'm sure whatever this is will blow over soon, but it feels very uncharacteristic and strange. 

Probably due to whatever flunk I'm in, I haven't gotten anything done lately. No cooking, no crafting, no blogging, no cleaning and no gardening. Last weekend I oven roasted a leg of lamb in mint and garlic pesto (at least that was home made) and a big chunk of beef silverside. All week, we have been eating meat with various veg. We got a ginormous cauliflower and some sprouting broccoli from the Culinary Consultant's Dad when we visited during the Easter break. That along with the amazing harvest of asparagus and a long forgotten broccoli in the back of the fridge kept us going all week. The Culinary Consultant was thrilled with the amount of meat, whereas come Friday I had all the meat I could take. So for dinner, I had a huge plate of asparagus and cauliflower with a good know of butter on top. One of the perks of being a grown up, you can have whatever the heck you want for dinner!

These waffles were pretty much the only thing I got around to cooking last weekend. The recipe is used without modification as it was published on Adventures in the Baking Aisle.

Carrot cake waffles (makes 4-5):
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup walnuts, chopped
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups finely grated carrots

The howto:
In a bowl mix the flour, walnuts, baking powder and spices. In another bowl, mix sugar, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and eggs. Mix together, add carrots and give a quick stir. To be honest, I just mixed all ingredients in one bowl, as I couldn't see a point to get two bowl dirty for this. It turned out great. 

Cook in your waffle maker according to instructions. I did mine on 2/3 of maximum heat for about 6 minutes each. Makes 4-5 waffles, for me it made 4 full size and one slightly smaller. Serve with maple syrup or cream cheese frosting.

The verdict:
These waffles are much softer and more cake-y than the Belgian type of waffles I usually make. The crispy crust of the Belgian waffles comes from the butter and the sugar. These waffles are much softer due to the lack of butter and smaller amount of sugar. They are much more healthy as well, although I do love the crusty type of waffles. Not saying these weren't good, but they certainly were different.

The spices give the waffles a flavour of carrot cake, although as the carrot doesn't cook as thoroughly as it would in a cake you can taste the carrot much more. I rather liked it. We had ours for breakfast with some maple syrup, but I would imagine they would also make a great dessert if served with a cream cheese icing, like the one I made for my red velvet cake.