Raised Waffles

While I consider Martha White's Southern Traditions cookbook to be the Bible of comfort food, the Raised Waffles recipe looks like a winner. :) Kent

Raised waffles: Recipe is a keeper
Once in a while, a recipe comes along that changes your life.
This recipe, from the 1896 Fannie Farmer Cookbook, is like that. It produces light, crisp waffles and was recently reprinted in Marion Cunningham's Lost Recipes (Knopf, $22).
In her note about it, she writes, "The Raised Waffle recipe alone could have sold a million copies. Don't make the mistake of thinking this is just another waffle; it isn't. It has won more accolades than any recipe I know, and it deserves them all."
It may be the only waffle recipe you'll ever really need.
Makes 8 waffles.
½ cup warm water
1 package active dry yeast
2 cups milk, warmed
½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1. Use a rather large mixing bowl — the batter will rise to double its original volume. Put the water in the mixing bowl and sprinkle in the yeast. Let stand for 5 minutes to dissolve. Add milk, melted butter, salt, sugar and flour to the yeast mixture and beat until smooth and well blended. (Cunningham wrote that she often uses a hand rotary beater to get rid of all the lumps.) Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let stand overnight at room temperature.
2. Just before cooking the waffles, beat in the eggs, add the baking soda, and stir until well mixed. The batter will be very thin. Pour ½ to ¾ cup batter into a very hot waffle iron for the first waffle, bake until golden and crisp and repeat until batter is used up. Or, store remaining batter in refrigerator for several days.