A reader once contacted me, asking “why there were so many recipes labeled with Maryland?” She included an example in her email – a recipe for “Maryland Cream Waffles.”
I hadn’t heard of Maryland Cream Waffles before, so I went to my database. The first thing I found was a recipe in Mrs. B. C. Howard’s “Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen,” for “Cream Waffles (Made In A Moment).”
In Howard’s recipe, saleratus interacts with soured cream for leavening while egg whites are beaten separately for additional air in the waffles.
Later recipes swap out baking powder for the saleratus and often use fresh cream or milk, but the formula didn’t change much, even as it was printed and reprinted in newspapers from the 1910s through the 1990s.
Nor should it. The resulting waffles are perfect, tender, crispy, and full of toasted flavor.
“Fifty Years in a Maryland Kitchen” had staying power, through numerous reprints and a 1944 edition revised by Florence Brobeck. It is possible that “Maryland Cream Waffles,” got their name simply due to having appeared in Howard’s book.
Mrs. W. B. Gardner won a spot in the 1911 Baltimore Sun Recipe contest with a Maryland Cream Waffles recipe. The theme that week was waffles and griddle cakes. Gardner included a tablespoon of cornmeal in her batter but otherwise kept the formula the same.
About a year after I was contacted with the question about the waffles, Martha Widra shared a recipe from her mother’s recipe box with me, also for Maryland Cream Waffles. This has become my go-to waffle recipe.
I’ve written a bit about waffle history before. The provenance of specific waffle recipes is a little more difficult to pin down. I’ve made these about a dozen times at this point. I don’t know why they’re called “Maryland,” but I’ll proudly take it.
Recipe:
- 2 c. flour
- 3 tsp. baking powder
- ½ tsp. salt
- 2 tsp. sugar
- ½ c. melted butter or Crisco
- 2 eggs
- 1 3/4 c. milk
Mix and sift dry ingredients together; add milk which has been mixed with beaten egg yokes; add melted butter. Beat until all lumps have disappeared and you have a smooth creamy mixture. Fold in beaten egg whites.
(Makes about 6 waffles.)
Family recipe shared by Martha Widra
