Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Chocolate Chip Waffles with Raspberry Cream

Wow! What do I say after another year long hiatus? I don't even know, so lets just pretend it didn't happen. I'm not making excuses...but I have done some thinking.
You've all seen them, those blogs that look perfect, with the most beautiful pictures of delicious looking food, the perfect tutorials for the cutest crafty things, hundreds of followers, thousands of comments, etc etc etc... Just in case you don't know what I'm talking about here are a few of my favorites... BakerellaHowDoesShe?The Dating Divas, Love From the Oven. They are all so perfect, and there are so many more out there. What's my point? My blog is no where close to these pieces of perfection. I get overwhelmed when I think about everything I need to do to get to that level and to be honest I have been discouraged. The other day I was doing dishes, just trying to make a dent in the never ending, always growing pile of dishes in my teeny tiny kitchen with no dishwasher or garbage disposal or counter space. While feeling sorry for myself and taking my indoor plumbing and clean, running water for granted I found myself thinking about my blog and how I missed writing posts and taking pictures of my yummy food and fun crafts and sharing them with a few people via the vast internet world. And I decided, I don't care anymore. So what if my kitchen table is used for counter space and is always a mess? Who cares if there are always dirty dishes waiting to be washed? Who cares if I don't have a fancy camera that takes beautiful pictures, or cute fancy dishes or other props to stage the finished product? My pictures might not look pretty, but my finished products are top notch..at least I think so. And if I am the only one that reads my blog (so nice to have all my recipes in one place and easy access with my phone), then my blog is 100% successful, because I love it. Not saying that I'm not going to try to improve it, but I'm not going to be discouraged and feel like a failure every time I visit my favorite blogs. So this is my unofficial disclaimer: Yes you might see some crumbs on my table, yes there might even be a dirty dish or two. Yes, I will share my favorite desserts and crafts and all the things that are Toadly Good in my world. Yes, I will embrace the fact that it wont be perfect and yes, I am happy with that.

Now that I have all that out, I can't end it without sharing something good. A simple, but very tasty, out of the ordinary breakfast...or in our case breakfast for dinner. I love raspberries and chocolate together, so this was a no brainer for me.




Chocolate Chip Waffles with Raspberry Cream

Ingredients:


Waffles:
1 3/4 cups Flour
2 tbsp Sugar
1 tbsp Baking Powder
2 Eggs
1 3/4 cups Milk
1/2 cup Oil or Melted Butter
1 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 cups Chocolate Chips (about)

Raspberry Cream:
1 Carton (about a cup) Fresh Raspberries
1 8 oz Whipped Topping

Directions:

Waffles:
In medium bowl stir the flour, sugar, and baking powder together. In another bowl beat the eggs slightly, stir in the milk and oil (or melted butter) and vanilla. Add egg mixture to the flour mixture. Start mixing. Add the chocolate chips. Then finish mixing it up. Batter should still be slightly lumpy.
Bake the waffles according to your waffle iron needs. 

Raspberry Cream:
Smash the raspberries in a medium sized bowl. Add the whipped topping and stir to mix.


*My Notes*
~My waffle iron makes 4 squares. And takes about 1 cup and a little bit of waffle batter to fill. I one and halved my recipe and it gave me 20 squares. (The ingredients listed is the original recipe for 1 batch and will only give you about 12 squares)
~I wanted a good amount of chocolate chips. When I was mixing them in, I thought I had added way too much, but for me, the amount was perfect. Not overwhelmingly chocolate, but chocolate in pretty much every bite. You decide how much chocolate you want to feed your family for breakfast, or dinner.
~For the cream I used my hand mixer. I just smashed the raspberries with the beaters. Then added the whipped topping and did a quick mix on low. I didn't want to beat out all the air.

~If I'd had fresh whipping cream on hand I would have used that, no hesitation. I love fresh cream. To do it that way, start with the cream. Beat it and add some powdered sugar to sweeten it up a bit, add a little vanilla. Smash the raspberries (or keep them whole if you want) in a separate bowl before adding to the cream, carefully fold the berries into the cream. You don't want to mix cream too much or it will turn to butter.
~I used fresh raspberries, but frozen can be used just as easily.


I love having breakfast for dinner! Anybody else, or is it just me?