Baking is one of my favorite things to do and during the Winter Holidays I make Gingerbread Houses and I teach other people how to make Gingerbread.  This past December, in addition to my classes I baked and built four different houses.  One for the Cancer Support Community’s Holiday Boutique, one for a sample for my class, one for home and one as a gift.  There are two ways to bake the houses – one is to cut out the pieces from the unbaked dough and the other is to bake the dough first before cutting out the pieces.  The advantage of the second method is that the pieces will all fit together without additional trimming after the baking process.  The disadvantage is that there are going to be a lot of sections of cookie that will not be big enough for any house, except for the chimney and how many of those do you need?  Now we do love to eat the leftovers but when there are a lot of leftovers, you can only so much.

As I said, Baking is one of my favorite things to do, but another one of my favorite culinary activities is to turn leftovers into new products and that is what I did with the leftover Gingerbread pieces.  I pulverized them to a fine crumb in my Food Processor and turned them into a Waffle Batter.  If you like Gingerbread, then you certainly will like Gingerbread Waffles.  Here is how I did it.

• Break up the leftover Gingerbread pieces into sections that will fit in your Food Processor that has been fitted with the Chopping Blade.  Use the Pulse Button to break up the pieces into small pieces and then turn it on to finely chop the Gingerbread pieces.  You should end up with a medium to fine crumb.
• Measure the Crumbs – 2 cups of Gingerbread Crumbs will make enough waffles for 3-4 people.

• Use your Food Processor (do not wash out the bowl) or a large mixing bowl.  Beat 3 Eggs until well mixed and then add 1 1/2 cups Buttermilk and blend together.
• Combine the Gingerbread Crumbs with 1 1/2 cups of All-Purpose Flour, 1 tsp. Cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. Ground Ginger and 1/2 tsp. Baking Soda.  Add to the Buttermilk/Egg mixture and Pulse, just until mixed.  If doing in a bowl, with a whisk, just mix until the Ingredients are blended – DO NOT OVER-MIX!  (Over-mixing Waffle, Pancake or Muffin Batter will make the product tough.
• Stir in 1/4 cup Melted Butter.

• Heat your Waffle Iron until the indicator light tells you the Iron is hot.  If necessary, lightly oil or spray the surface of the Iron.
• Pour approximately 1/2 cup of Batter on each section of you Waffle Irons Grids (this will vary, depending on the size and shape of our Waffle Iron)

• Close and Bake until the steaming stops.  Keep the baked Waffles warm in a low oven until you are ready to serve them.

• Serve with Fruit Compote and or Maple Syrup and melted Butter.  The Waffles in the Feature Photo are served with crisply cooked bacon.
• For the Fruit Compote,I melted about 2 Tbsps. of Butter along with Brown Sugar (2-4 Tbsps.).  I then added pitted and halved Cherries, Blackberries and fresh Pineapple pieces.  This will work with just about any fruit – Apples are great with Gingerbread as well as Bananas, Mango or Papaya.

And this is how you use leftover Gingerbread to make Waffles!  As a convenience, I have also listed the ingredients below.

2 CUPS Gingerbread Crumbs

1 1/2 cups Flour

1 tsp. Cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground Ginger

1/2 tsp. Baking Soda

3 Eggs

1 1/2 cups Buttermilk

1/4 cup melted Butter