• Written by Rich McNabb • Proofread & Edited by Claude AI
Years of finding gluten-free waffles or dairy-free waffles, never both in the same place. This 4-ingredient waffle recipe solves both problems at once, no substitutes, no compromise, just one recipe that actually works.
I’ve been a huge Eddie Murphy fan ever since I saw his stand-up comedy special, Delirious. I still laugh in anticipation, waiting for the next punchline to land just as hard as it did the first time I watched it on VHS back in the 90s.
When Eddie provided the voice for Donkey in the Shrek movies and announced, “In the morning, I’m making waffles,” that’s the moment waffles landed on my radar.
Driving around Canada, we kept running into the same problem. One restaurant would have gluten-free waffles that still used dairy. The next place had the reverse, dairy-free waffles loaded with gluten. Every single time, it was one or the other. Never both.
We could put a man on the moon back in 1969 with a computer about as powerful as a child’s calculator, yet the maths on this was too complex to crack. Until now.
No worries, you can skip the story and jump straight to the waffle recipe.
Back home, still dreaming about waffles, I went looking online to see if anyone had actually solved both at once. That’s when I found Becky Excell of Gluten Free Cuppa Tea, a London-based food writer and four-time Sunday Times bestselling author who started the blog after her own health took gluten off the table for good.
This is unchanged from Becky Excell’s original recipe. No substitutes, swaps or deals with the devil required, which almost never happens. Her four-ingredient waffle recipe is gluten-free and dairy-free, solving a problem that had us driving all over Canada and repeatedly coming up empty-handed.
Next up was to find a waffle maker that was up to the task.
Step 1: Combine
Combine the flour and baking powder in a large mixing bowl.
Step 2: Whisk
Crack in the eggs, pour in the milk, and whisk by hand until smooth with no lumps.
Step 3: Heat
Heat up your waffle maker.
Step 4: Pour
Pour in the batter, not so much that it overflows, and close the lid.
Step 5: Cook
Cook until golden, following your own waffle maker’s settings.
Step 6: Repeat
Remove and repeat until the batter’s used up.
Part of what we were chasing with waffles goes back to Homer’s Coffee Shop in Port Jervis, New York, where all the camp counsellors would meet for breakfast before heading out for the day. Or the Waffle House we went to in Atlanta, Georgia, hometown of my beloved American heavy metal band Mastodon. Diner booths, coffee and all day breakfast.
Thanks to Becky, we had the recipe sorted, just needed a waffle machine that could actually pull it off. Reviews pointed hard at the Breville Smart Waffle, and it earns every bit of the hype.
Belgian-style iron, square with deep pockets, the shape everyone pictures when they hear “Belgian waffle,” though the batter itself is pure American technique, baking powder rather than yeast. A Moccamaster runs quietly in the background, so filtered coffee next to a stack of waffles is about as close as we get to recreating the American diner experience.
Gluten and dairy-free baking is tricky at a molecular level at the best of times, its own kind of design challenge, get the ratios wrong and the whole thing falls apart, not unlike folding geometric origami from a single sheet of paper.
I’ve got a GF loaf in the cupboard that’s borderline inedible uncooked, shockingly offensive on the tastebuds, yet give it a couple of minutes in the toaster and you’d never guess it wasn’t the real thing. Feels a bit like the big reveal in the Flaming Moe’s episode of The Simpsons, the whole thing hinging on one unassuming step nobody would expect.
We’ve all seen commercials where the advertised product delivers Hollywood results, then you get it home and there’s a massive disconnect between expectation and reality.
Looking at the professionally produced, studio-quality product images on the box, then looking back down at what’s actually in front of you in disbelief, hunting for the receipt while wondering how they convinced you this time would be different.
Going in, we didn’t expect much. First attempt with a new machine, gluten-free and dairy-free on top of that, felt like it was stacking the odds against us even before we’d cracked an egg. Vegas wouldn’t take on that risk, the stakes were too high.
When Ali opened the lid on the waffle maker’s maiden voyage, I was half expecting a burned waffle that was still raw in the middle, or one stuck fast to the plates needing to be pried off, something to at least laugh about on camera.
Certainly wasn’t expecting perfection, not this early on, not on the first try. Yet the waffles looked like something off a Hollywood movie. Real Walter White level chemistry, minus the RV and the questionable life choices.
Every time you buy something from “As Seen On TV” or a Facebook ad, an angel loses its wings. However, on rare occasions, like a recent Facebook purchase for breaking my phone addiction, the planets align and you actually get something that improves your life. Turns out this was one of those moments, high risk, high reward, and the gamble paid off.
We must have had waffles for a week solid after that first attempt, same as the week we spent dialing in the 11 herbs and spices baked chicken recipe. Coincidentally, while researching waffle makers, I kept seeing people piling fried chicken on top of theirs. Consider that all the permission you need to try it yourself.
These waffles store well too, a couple of minutes in the toaster and they’re a proper snack, not just a breakfast thing. Blueberries and maple syrup became the go-to, though there’s nothing stopping you going savoury if that’s your jam.
These turn into a proper build-your-own-waffle station whenever people are over, the same behavioural design trick that stops one person getting stuck doing everything. Pile the pre-cut fruit in the middle of the table and let everyone customise their own to taste.
People talking while they assemble their breakfast Ikea-style, coffee brewing, music playing through the house. Just a waffle maker, four ingredients, minimal design applied to breakfast instead of a screen, and a good cup of filter coffee on the side.
Gluten-free or dairy-free, never both, that was the choice for years. Same story with banana protein pancakes, until we found a recipe that actually stuck, one more lazy weekend classic added to the rotation.
