Sometimes the easiest and simplest foods are also the hardest to cook well. Pancakes and waffles are good examples of this. The seemingly simple pancakes, most of the times instead of being soft and fluffy are dense and heavy. And sadly, when you make pancakes from scratch, they are much harder to get right versus using the boxed mix. Same is true for waffles - the number of times I have eaten bad waffles clearly outnumbers the number of times a light, crisp and tender waffle landed on my plate. After several attempts at making waffles with recipes that are just not good enough, I came upon this recipe from Pam Anderson.

What I love most about her recipes are that they give the results you're looking for every single time - the tested and tried recipes from her kitchen have never failed me. This waffles recipe is no exception. This recipe has been adopted from the book "CookSmart" by Pam Anderson and one read through the book explains the science behind getting these right. I am a big fan of how she approaches her recipes - she always has an end in mind ..... what she wants from the recipe and won't give up till she gets it right. Thanks to her for all this hard work. All we have to do is just follow the steps correctly. There are 3 things that work in favor of this recipe. Firstly, the addition of cornflour to the batter makes the waffles very crisp. Secondly, using beaten egg whites add the extra lightness to the batter to make light & airy waffles. Thirdly, keeping them in a warm oven in a single layer ensures these don't go limp.

I love these waffles with icing sugar sprinkled on them or just served warm with maple syrup. My daughter loves these with chocolate sauce drizzled over them. They are equally delicious with fresh blueberries or strawberries or Nutella spread on them - sometimes even peanut butter. And of course if the time of day is not morning, then these waffles are just lovely with ice cream and hot fudge sauce drizzled over them. If you have been looking for the perfect recipe for Waffles, your search ends here.

Makes 4-5 waffles.

Notes from the author: Depending on the number of people being served, this recipe can be doubled, tripled or even quadrupled. Don't stack the waffles or they will turn moist and limp within seconds. If you forget, just separate them and place them in a single layer on the oven rack to crisp them up again.

Ingredients

3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup milk

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 large egg, separated

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Maple Syrup to serve

Method:

1. Heat oven to 200F. Mix flour, cornstarch, salt, baking powder, baking soda in a medium bowl. Put buttermilk, milk and vegetable oil in a bowl, mix in yolk and set aside.

2. Beat egg white almost to soft peaks. sprinkle in sugar and continue until whites are firm and glossy. Beat in vanilla.

3. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and whisk until just mixed. Add egg whites to batter in dollops and fold it in with a spatula until just incorporated.

4. Add batter to hot waffle iron (approx 2/3 cup) and cook until crisp and nutty brown. Set waffle on oven rack for at least 5 minutes and upto 20 minutes to keep it warm and crisp. Repeat with remaining batter.

Serve immediately with syrup.