Spiced Apple Butter Waffles & Gettin' Real

Happy Waffle Wednesday! Alright, so this week's waffle has been a few weeks in the making. Actually, I've been eating apple butter in my oatmeal for years and it occurred to me back in the early fall--could you make this into a waffle? And so, an idea was born.

Back in my gluten eating days, I could throw anything in with my base waffle mix and it would turn out every time. It didn't matter what combo I came up with, all purpose flour just made it happen.

Not so with gluten free baking--it's kind of a trial and error process. You've got to make sure you've got a good combo of wet ingredients to dry ones. If you use too much wet, things will not come together at all. Too little wet, and it's just a sticky mess.

But, just to be completely transparent, and show you my recipe testing isn't perfect....uhhh here's what my first *cough* mayyyybe the second *cough* experiment actually yielded.
​

Yep, no filter there. Those are straight burned. And once you moved past the charcoal, it was tasteless.

So, back to the drawing board.

​Because I wanted this guy to be the star of my waffle creation.
​

So, third times the charm. I can't just create waffles the way I did it when I first found my waffle making swagger. It's a gluten free world I'm living in these days and my waffle game has changed dramatically. Thanks to a lot of research and experimenting (uhh more pics of that will not be forthcoming), I found an amazing recipe I was able to riff off of Cookie + Kate, a blog I've read and admired for a while. And hallelujah! What I needed to do clicked. The heavens opened up and the angels sang to me....success!! Or, were they singing about the upcoming Christmas Day? Either way, I celebrated a Christmas miracle in my own kitchen.
​

So, what did I use? Oat flour. Yep, those yummy, rolled, oaty-riffic, fave breakfast option of mine.

Who knew you could take those little guys and make them into this?
​

Well, Cookie + Kate did....I've just been outta the loop. For an embarrassing amount of time.

Oh well, no time like the present to learn. And y'all will be learning right along with me. Come on along!

To make these waffles spicier (my apple butter just had apples and apple cider in it), I added in cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg with the apple butter. Much better than the above version.

I may or may not have danced around the kitchen once I opened up my maker and realized this round actually worked! I mean, who doesn't when they tackle a culinary challenge or any challenge for that matter??
​

There are so many options to customize it for you and yours. Add in chopped walnuts, chopped pecans, or slivered almonds. Add in small, chopped pieces of apple. Serve with maple vanilla bean syrup. Serve with yogurt. Serve with sliced bananas and almond butter. Serve with extra apple butter and vegan (or dairy) butter. Sprinkle with walnuts or pecans. I mean apple butter itself is wonderful, but to make it with oats is glorious.

​ I hope I did you proud Mr. Apple Butter. Because you sure make me beam.

Won't you join me?

Share with me by tagging #wafflewednesday AND #myhealingmirepoix. I want to see what you create ?
​

Spiced Apple Butter Waffles

​adapted from Cookie + Kate

Yum