Thanksgiving Breakfast

This morning Justin asked me, "So are we going to make breakfast today?" It was Saturday morning and we both had the day off work, so it was a good morning for making something good for breakfast. We mentioned bacon and eggs, but while Justin took a lukewarm shower (I had showered first and had used up a great deal of the hot water!) I pulled out my Williams Sonoma breakfast cookbook. There I found a recipe for Pumpkin-Pecan Waffles with Maple-Cranberry Butter. Not only did this recipe fit the Thanksgiving-weekend theme, but I happened to have everything it called for (pureed pumpkin, pecans, fresh cranberries, maple syrup, a waffle iron, etc)! Justin was skeptical, but we decided to try it.

First, we preheated the waffle iron. Then we sifted together 1 cup flour, 1 Tbsp dark brown sugar, 1 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt. Separately, we mixed 1 1/4 cups milk, 1 egg, 1 1/2 Tbsp melted butter and 2/3 cups pumpkin puree. We gently mixed the two together (stirring as little as possible), and added 1/3 cup chopped pecans. We cooked them on the waffle iron like ordinary waffles (spraying the waffle iron with Pam first to prevent sticking), and kept early batches warm in a low (200) oven while waiting for the later waffles to finish.

The maple-cranberry butter was separate from the waffles. I put 1/4 cup maple syrup and 1/2 cup cranberries (could be fresh or thawed) into a small saucepan over low heat until the cranberries all popped, and the maple syrup ended up red. Then I cooled it, and mixed it into a cup of room temperature butter. It tasted really good spread over the waffles, especially when additional maple syrup was drizzled on top.

Yum! I'd definitely make this again, especially for any pumpkin-themed seasons. Although my early batches ended up a little soggy, they tasted really good - like waffles with more flavour. Now I have to find other recipes that fit with maple-cranberry butter, because we didn't use even close to all of it on our waffles. (Or I could just make more waffles!)