Stove top cast aluminum waffle iron help

[jedovaty]

Hi!

Does anyone here use or have used waffle irons that are cast-aluminum with no coatings?  Not cast iron or various shades of non-stick?  I need help.

 

I picked up a French made, stove-top cast aluminum waffle iron, it was unused.  Washed it, and after countless hours researching the internet, decided to try to "season" it like cast iron using the only high temp oil I had on hand right now (avocado oil).  I couldn't get the handles off without damaging the them, however, found a way to use the outdoor natural gas grill, which can hold a stable temp far better than my oven, so I baked this thing at ~535F for 90 minutes at a time. 

 

Since many US made electric waffle irons from the 1920s-1960s used cast aluminum grates as well, I thought this would be fairly easy. 

 

3 very very thin coats later and several wasted hours followed by stupidly sore fingers, decided I didn't want to do that anymore and would "season" it by just using it.  Heated some oil in it to smoking, cleaned, let cool, heated again to ~350-375F on the stove, wiped with a little oil, poured in batter, epic fail.  Fortunately this cleaned up easily with just a soak and no loss of prior "seasoning", then I performed a few more "seasonings", going a little heavier with the oil.  I'm not sure I'm doing this right, it's barely changing.

 

Thoughts?

 

One of my aluminum sheet pans has a super slick black spot on it that occurred after a piece of parchment paper tore, and I think this is supposed to be the goal - I can see something like that on the center hinge here.  That part wasn't wiped with oil, so I think it was lubricant.  Wiping the oil to a very thin layer is really painful on my fingers   Qtips, papertowels, my cast-iron oil rag, it's all kind of tedious. 

 

First time on the grill:

 

after 3 seasonings

 

Rate my waffle

 

Few more seasonings, just a little browner, what am I doing wrong

 

[pastrygirl]

 

Is that batter recipe tried-and true?  Hard to tell if that pic is a recipe fail or an equipment fail.

[jedovaty]

Hmm, interesting.  I didn't think the recipe would matter, previously didn't have issues with random ingredients haphazardly mixed up into my electric iron (which was non-stick and no longer with me).  FWIW, the iron was stuck closed and I had to use some force to open it up.

 

This iron came with three recipes, I can try the one that doesn't call for a small bag of barm; I know what barm is, but I thought it was measured by volume, not bags.  Otherwise, I'll search eg for recipes or go to my local library for a book.  Google searches have gone way downhill, nothing but ad-driven and AI generated content

Edited April 22 by jedovaty (log)

[jedovaty]

Here's what's on my aluminum sheet pan, the stuff is slick and nothing sticks to it.  It's also quite resilient, hasn't come off despite scrubbing for several years now.  Is this a reasonable goal on the waffler?  Somehow, I suspect it won't be possible...

[AlaMoi]

you'll get close.

 

both pancake and waffle  recipes come in variations of ". . . . add melted butter / oil . . ."

for 'bare' cast iron/aluminum my experience has been . . . they require when hot, pre-bake, brushed on oil/butter in the first months time.

eventually, the fat builds up the slick polymer layer - but they will always need an oil/melted butter component to the  recipe.

there is a myth that non-stick coated plates don't require oil/butter in the mix.  it's a myth . . . I do both baking powder and yeasted/Liege waffles using a non-stick - but a bit of butter makes for perfection.

 

frankly I think the melted butter does a better job - at making for non-stick as well as for taste.

 

[jedovaty]

Completed one more "seasoning" by filling each side with oil, heating to smoking, letting cool, draining, and wiping mostly clean.  Then I baked on my grill for 2 hours (I had a call for work).  It didn't get much darker, just a bit more bronze.

The iron came with three recipes, I tried 1/3 batch of the country one, using some IDY instead of a bag of barm.  Per AlaMoi's suggestion, buttered up the the iron generously.  The batch made 7 waffles.  Here are the remaining four.  And the mess on the stove omg.  I think I want to "season" the exterior sides of the iron as well before next time.

But I finally had me some waffles.  I'm happy.  Next project, the swedish waffles from David Chang's recent live netflix show, and then try to make the hippie-compatible versions and their variations (no dairy, no eggs, no gluten, etc).  I'll update over next couple weeks for sake of posterity.

 

Recipe

 

Waffles

 

Stove

[AlaMoi]

oh yeah . . . the right amount of batter is always a joy to determine....  you can use the measured method - find a cup/bowl/can of the 'right volume' - pour the batter into the 'measured volume' then to the waffle iron.

 

with practice you can eyeball it - although the rise / out-squish will vary with the recipe - i.e. yeast vs baking powder vs starter ....

[jedovaty]

There's no channel around the perimeter like on my former nonstick version to catch any overflow.  This thing didn't as much squish out as it explusioned out, and caught me off guard, making some sort of high-pitched sharting noise.  Quite entertaining 😁 Probably has to do with the yeast in the batter haha.  I figured out how to partially clean between batches, which makes the process a little less daunting (I have trouble cooking on a dirty stove).

 

I tried the "swedish cloud waffle" recipe that I saw on the netflix david chang live show.  Netflix publishes the recipe, heavily hydrated cake flour with a little salt, then fold in whipped cream (same amount as water).  First one was an utter failure, discovered you can't just put a little batter in and go.  There's an instagram set of videos which shows how the waffles are made on a cast iron waffler, you pretty much have to overfill it.  I got it to kind of work, the waffle split in half but it didn't stick to the iron and I could get it out (see pictures).  I suspect my flour - a very low protein flour from central europe, hladka muka 00 - has a lot to do with it, or I really need to load in a lot more.  That said, I don't think I'll try this again with different flour.. it was too milk fatty for my taste, even with an acidic jam/sourcream on the side. 

 

The big isi or waffle thread on this forum has a bunch of lacy waffling experiments, I'm going to go read them for some ideas   Meantime, here's the entertainment.

 

Seasoning

 

Split in half

 

It did pull out cleanly

[AlaMoi]

. . . . fork split waffle . . . . been there, done that!

 

based on experiences at motels with 'u-make'em' breakfast - typically Golden brand waffles -

bought a double-flip type maker

this was my early attempt at a Liege/yeasted recipe . . . didn't fill out according to plan, but solved that.

[jedovaty]

Cool!  I'll try liege waffles when I make some brioche dough another day.  I have pearl sugar somewhere since I've made them before, too, using sourdough, quite delicious but holy cow were they filling.

 

Here is the instagram post I wrote about.. to make the waffle work, based on what happened to me and this video it appears the technique requires overfilling so that there's enough substance to create a waffle since the flour is so highly hydrated: https://www.instagram.com/p/BmruH4ED4CJ/?hl=en&img_index=3

(not sure how well the link will come through, it's the 3rd and 4th options in the instagram post).  But again, I likely won't try this recipe a second time because I just did not like the taste of the baked/toasted cream.  Maybe I'll try with eggwhites instead.

 

My goal isn't really to fill up the waffler and have a pretty waffle, ultimately I just want to be able to make a waffle from whatever random batter I put together.  Since the iron appears seasoned now, I tried again this morning.  It split in half but released very easily with a little help of a chopstick.  Batter was oats, buckwheat, and chickpeas blitzed in the vitamix, mixed with bubbly water, olive oil, baking powder, salt and a little honey.  It could be that the teeth in the iron are too close, too large, or wrong angle since the waffle also pulled apart with the swedish recipe.  With my non-stick, I've done fun things like dosa/idly batter, pão de quiejo, left over sourdough bits, and so on.  I suspect some will work, but the more delicate ones like idly will fail without at least having a binder such as egg or higher percentage of wheat flour.  Since it's working in the cast iron instagram post above, it could be the teeth issue or maybe I still just need moar seasoning.  🤷‍♂️

 

I might try pão next couple weekends, haven't made those in a long time.

 

 

[blue_dolphin]

Kudos to you, @jedovaty, at getting that thing to work! I remember my mom being frustrated by a similar unit. She would just get in a groove and we'd have several great waffle meals and then it would suddenly become possessed, refuse to turn them out and the resulting scrubbing would take the seasoning back to the beginning and we'd return to pancakes for months!

[AlaMoi]

I suspicion that the waffle iron is not hot enough when you fill it.

 

the batter should immediately sizzle - if it's too cold the batter 'bakes on' instead of crusting.

[jedovaty]

@blue_dolphin Oh dear, that sounds seriously frustrating .  I'm tired of pancakes, and I miss me some waffles so I'm willing to play with a toy that's as fickle as one of my ex gf's 😛.  There's so little info on bare cast-aluminum wafflers, yet this material was predominant in nearly all the US-made electric waffle irons from the 1930s-1960s until teflon showed up.  Whatever little detail I've found, suggests it should be treated similar to cast iron, just a little more fragile.  I really like how even the resulting waffles are, no hot spots at all.  So if it's all right, I'm going to sort of document what happens here, in case others out there in the internet future decide to pick up a bare cast-aluminum iron.

 

@AlaMoi: Possibly, but it could also be too hot, that'll cause sticking, too.  In this case, I doubt the iron's heat is the issue, I made the same recipe using same technique/timing as yesterday but used egg + soy sauce instead of bubbly water.  The egg held the batter together better once cooked and the output was a perfect, albeit dense.  Despite this, it served my purpose (lunch) and I'm happy to report I used very little oil on the iron itself, seasoned up nicely now. 

 

At this point the little testing suggests the splitting issue to a combination of recipe and technique.. and since I have fun with this sort of stuff, I'm going to keep trying variations of dairy free, egg free, wheat free, etc.

[FeChef]

I can't help but ask, what are the advantages of using this aluminum waffle mold? I think i have a well seasoned cast iron waffle mold just like this for camping. I have yet to use it, lol.

[jedovaty]

There are advantages and disadvantages.  A proper answer would probably require multiple psychiatric evaluations and half the drive space of the entire internet to document.

My counter question to you, where did you find a cast iron waffle mold like this?   Are they available?  Other details?

[AlaMoi]

this has a run down cast iron vs aluminum + listing of cast iron waffle makers

https://foodsguy.com/best-cast-iron-waffle-makers/

[jedovaty]

Stick to egullet, like batter to an unseasoned waffler

Edited April 30 by jedovaty (log)

[jedovaty]

Same recipe as yesterday, except this time I whipped the eggwhites.  Volume was enough to make 2 waffles instead of just 1, it's perfect amount, no runout, too!  They were lighter for sure.  Soft, not crispy.  I toasted the first one in my cuisinart steam toaster and it was great.  Minimal oil used on the teefs.  Won't bore everyone with an update again until I can get the crispy/lacy style waffles done, maybe glamor shot with some ice cream from the ninja as the weather warms up.  Woohoo!

[AlaMoi]

soft, not crispy . . . .

a rather common thing with waffles 'right out of' the iron.

even letting them cool down 2-3 minutes on a cooking rack will increase the 'crisp' factor.

 

plopping them on a solid surface - wood, countertop, baking tray, , , , - that traps moisture still steaming out of the waffle - and makes for soggy/not crisp.