Sawsan Abu Farha @ Chef in disguise Breakfast, Daring cooks

Cornmeal ricotta lemon waffles

Our challenge for the month of August was to broaden out knowledge of cornmeal. This challenge was an interesting one because I have only used cornmeal in a recipe once before when we made tamales for the daring cooks challenge. Other than that cornmeal is used to dust pizza pans in my kitchen. I decided to do a little research.

I found my recipe over at Jessica’s wonderful blog kitchenbelleicious, cornmeal waffles! We had just bought a waffle machine and I could not wait to use it. I stuck to the recipe with the exception of making 2 changes. We sadly don’t get blueberries here so I  omitted them and reduced the baking powder to 2 teaspoons.

The waffles were a huge hit.The cornmeal gives them a nice crispy texture without making the waffle hard. They are still both perfectly moist and tender but with that nice slightly crispy exterior. If you have never used ricotta in your baked goods I strongly suggest you do, it makes the waffles fluffy and light. The double dose of lemon from the lemon zest and juice adds so much freshness. The end result is a winner breakfast that your family will request again and again.

If you don’t have a waffle iron but still want to enjoy the lemony ricotta goodness, try making my lemon ricotta pancakes.They are my kids favorite weekend breakfast. My next project is to try replacing 1/3 the flour in them with cornmeal, will keep you posted how that turns out.

Cornmeal ricotta waffles

Recipe adapted from here who adapted the recipe from here

1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

2 cups milk

6 large eggs, separated

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups cake flour

1/2 cup fine yellow cornmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter

1 lemon juice

1 tablespoon lemon zest

Instructions

In your food processor, beat the ricotta with the milk, lemon juice,egg yolks and sugar.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour with the cornmeal, baking powder and salt.
Add the dry ingredients into the ricotta mixture and whisk until combined.
Stir in the melted butter.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until firm peaks form.
Fold the egg whites into the batter and add in the lemon zest .
 Lightly coat your waffle iron or waffle machine with oil
Heat your waffle making machine or the waffle iron.
Spoon the batter onto the machine or waffle iron
Close and cook until the waffles are golden and crisp.
Serve the waffles immediately or transfer them to a rack in the oven to keep warm.
 Rachael of pizzarossa was our August 2012 Daring Cook hostess and she challenged us to broaden our knowledge of cornmeal!  Rachael provided us with some amazing recipes and encouraged us to hunt down other cornmeal recipes that we’d never tried before – opening our eyes to literally 100s of cuisines and 1000s of new-to-us recipes
Thank you Rachael for a wonderful challenge 🙂 I know I will be making these cornmeal ricotta waffles again and again and I will be experimenting with cornmeal more.