Eggnog Sourdough Waffles

Tangy sweet waffles made with eggnog and sourdough starter. A fun way to enjoy eggnog during the holiday season--and marked down eggnog after the new year!

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I'm a sucker for magical markdown stickers. Where some people see 'oh it's about to go bad' I see opportunity. I picked up a half gallon of eggnog with no clear purpose. Buying food not on a previously thought out list is NOT a good way to Reduce Food Waste, however it is a source of inspiration to me so I'll keep on doing it. Within reason. Walking to the grocery store as I have been for the past 2 months when all I need is a gallon of milk has really cut down on impulse purchases.

I've used eggnog in waffles before--my Pumpkin Eggnog Waffles with Chocolate Chips made it onto the blog, but the Pumpkin Effnog waffles I never did find in my earlier photo searches, even though I was pretty sure I'd made some before. [Note to bloggers, when pulling photos off your camera, check the spelling as you add labels.] Eggnog in French toast? You bet I went there. What about oven pancakes? Yes, I've used eggnog in my Finnish Oven Pancake. Heck, I've even used eggnog in savory pizza dough with butternut squash. I do drink it, though it may not seem that way by all of these recipes.

I have to interrupt my flow with a behind the scenes photo--Robert Barker eyeing the bacon. Don't let the short legs fool ya. He swiped a piece of coconut cream pie off the counter last month. He's a dickens and I love him.

Pear Walnut Sourdough Coffee Cake

Chopped pears and walnuts flavor this simple sourdough coffee cake.

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My sourdough starter is a toddler now, and moving into a big kid bed back onto the kitchen counter. When the starter lives on the counter, I feed it every few days and take out a cup or so with each feeding.


In the past year I've used that cup of starter to make countless loaves of Multigrain Sourdough Bread, monthly batches of sourdough waffles using this King Arthur Flour recipe, and the occasional treat:  this sourdough coffee cake.

During the summer, though, my kitchen is too warm to leave the starter out--it gets funky fast--so it lives in the fridge.  Out of sight, out of mind. I can't tell you how many times I realized we would need bread ready to eat before I'd have time to wake up the starter and bake a loaf--so off to the store we'd go--walking, for exercise but still. Blerg. I'm glad the weather is turning so the kitchen is cooling down. It's great for the Strategic Winter Squash Reserve, great for canning tomatoes, and great for the sourdough starter. Remind me of this fabulousness when there's frost on the inside of the kitchen windows, please?

While the recipe title says pear, I've also made this with chopped apples. Apparently the type of fruit doesn't even matter, because my son looked over my shoulder at the post title as I sat writing in the orthodontist's office--the free samples at Costco resulted in a lost retainer--and remarked "there was fruit in the coffee cake?" I try and try to nourish the family with wholesome food, and while it does get shoveled in the pie holes perhaps the subtle nuances in flavor get missed.


Note: here's the inspiring recipe for this coffee cake. I added fruit, used no sugar in the batter, changed up the spices, and pumped up the topping with oats because I love throwing my oats around. I also tried the method of starting it the night before--using unfed starter straight out of the fridge. This works fine in my kitchen. I've also let it rise in my oven on the bread proof setting until the top is gently puffed.


For more recipes using pears, please see my Pear Recipes Collection. It's part of the Visual Recipe Index by Ingredient, a resource for folks like me eating from the farm share, the farmer's market, the garden, the neighbor's garden, and great deals on ugly produce at the grocery store.

I'm sharing more recipes on my Pinterest boards, follow me there. If you like a good peek behind the scenes like I do, follow me on Instagram. Need a good read? I'm sharing articles of interest on my Facebook page, follow me there. Want to know How to Use This Blog?

Multigrain Sourdough Bread (in a bread machine)

Multigrain sourdough bread--sounds hard, but use the bread machine to easily make this loaf!

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Today I am joining with my fellow food bloggers to encourage our readers to donate to The Lunchbox Fund, an organization that provides daily meals to South African children.

Why am I asking you to help feed kids in South Africa when there are hungry kids in our own communities?  It's simple.  I feel everyone who can help has a responsibility to help others.  In my community, I give my time and my food to my local Foodbank.  With 65% of all kids in South Africa living in poverty, nearly 20% of them orphans, it is clear to me that my help is needed outside my own community.  By participating in this campaign with The Giving Table, we are hoping to raise enough funds to provide a daily meal to 100 South African children for a year.

There's strength in numbers, people.

I just donated $10 to help feed kids in South Africa, it took me about 2 minutes, and you know where I coughed up the money from?  I spent the weekend at a sled hockey tournament in snowy Ft Wayne, Indiana.  Instead of picking up drinks and snacks on the road/at the venue, I packed from home.  That saved me easily $10, and other than a bit of planning ahead it was painless. And better for us.


I'll tell you more after the recipe, but first--a bit about this bread.  When Nicole asked me to share a lunch recipe I was stumped.  I mean, more often than not my daughter comes home from school and we eat leftovers for lunch. "Remove container from fridge.  Reheat in microwave." is a pretty short recipe, you know?  Then I started thinking about my son, and how I forced him to he's been making his own lunch this year, which is usually a sandwich.  The foundation of his sandwiches is usually this bread.

I started making bread 6 months ago after reading Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (Amazon Affiliate link) while participating in the HOMEGROWN.org summer book club.  Learning about what all goes into a loaf in a Wonderbread factory left me unsettled.  [Not that I'd been buying Wonderbread, mind you.]  I had a packet of dried sourdough starter so I decided to go for it.

Over the months I've tweaked the recipe I started with, from Best Bread Machine Recipes (another Amazon Affiliate Link), adding flax meal and oats, adjusting the amount and kind of flours originally specified.  Because I started making this bread in August, when my kitchen is crazy hot (it's crazy cold in the winter) I chose to dust off my bread machine.

Rant: Some folks may say that this is a cop out, that I am not really baking bread.  You know what?  When I load dirty clothes, washing soda, vinegar, detergent and fabric softener into my washing machine, close the lid, and push the start button I say I'm doing laundry.  And I'm not even controlling the amount of water used to wash the clothes!  Use the tools available to you, if you like.  At the thrift shop where I work, I see bread machines each month--usually in the $10 to $20 range. /rant