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These dairy free waffles are fluffy and scented with chai spices! Made with almond milk and coconut oil, they’re a delicious dairy free breakfast option.
“The more you love your art/calling/enterprise…the more you will fear it and the more resistance you will experience facing it.” Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
My current read is the most quotable of books; the words ring like a gong of truth into my life, and perhaps into yours too. Your creative work, your business or non-profit idea, your dream to write a novel or a screenplay or a symphony, to start writing poetry again, to start a blog or website: with that idea comes fear. Fear that it won’t work out, you’ll be laughed at, that you won’t be good enough. Keep reading for more on fear and how these chai spiced dairy free waffles relate.
Creativity and fear
We’ve been taking some creative risks lately, and man — resistance is right there with us. It might look easy from the outside. But each recipe and photograph is an effort as Alex and I learn the dance of holding light-bouncing boards and spoons and napkins, like with these chai dairy free waffles. And our A Couple Cooks podcast — it’s both a joy and huge risk, as we try our hand at a new skill sets like interviewing (without um’s) and editing audio instead of photographs. Over the years it’s gotten easier and easier to press Publish on our work, but after almost 6 years it still gives my stomach butterflies.
But we keep pressing on because, well — we truly, deeply, sincerely love it. It makes us feel alive. And knowing that you make some of the recipes we post here and that they add nourishment to your life — that matters to us. A lot. Because our dream is that through our photographs and story telling, more and more people might come to know the joy of cooking and be inspired to advocate for sustainable ways of eating and the right to nourishing food for all people.
In last week’s post we talked about dreams and loved hearing what is on your hearts. This week, we’d love to know both about your dreams and your fears. Is fear holding you back from the creative dream that is in your heart? Did you grow up practicing a creative outlet but it’s fallen to the wayside now that you’re in the “working world”? Do you find resistance when you take steps toward the thing that makes you feel alive? Do you fear the judgement of others on your work — does it paralyze you from sharing that photograph, that essay or that poem? Let us know in the comments below.
How to make dairy free waffles
This recipe was a happy accident, a challenge to create a recipe with almond milk. We ended up with dairy free waffles, made a bit of whole wheat flour for a healthy spin. What makes them dairy free? Using almond milk instead of traditional milk is an easy swap and makes for perfectly fluffy waffles! And instead of butter, we’ve used coconut oil: if you’d like, you could substitute any neutral oil in place of coconut oil.
And now the best part of these dairy free waffles: the flavor from the chai spices! Lately we’ve been experimenting with adding chai flavor by making things like chai spiced cookies and chai spiced jam, and it’s incredibly good! The key to the chai flavor is cardamom, so make sure to find some ground cardamom if you can!)
For the topping on these dairy free waffles, we used frozen berries to whip up a delicious berry compote, tangy and sweet with maple syrup. It made for both some shocking pink kitchen stains and a delicious topping.
Want more waffles? Try Fluffy Gluten Free Waffles, Blueberry Waffles, or Strawberry Waffles!
Looking for more brunch recipes?
Outside of these dairy free waffles, here are some of our favorite brunch recipes:
- Perfect Waffle Recipe
- Fluffy Scrambled Eggs with Goat Cheese
- Two Potato Hash with Soft Boiled Eggs
- Vegan French Toast with Caramelized Bananas
- Acai Bowl Recipe
- Healthy Banana Bread
- Parmesan Herb Baked Eggs
- Dippy Eggs with Toast Soldiers
- Waffle Party
- Lemon Poppy Seed Oat Pancakes
- Easy Banana Pancakes
- Pumpkin Pancakes with Maple Mascarpone
- Coconut Strawberry Smoothie
- Banana Oatmeal Pancakes
- Vegan Breakfast Ideas
- 97 Brunch Recipes
This dairy free waffles recipe is…
Vegetarian and dairy-free
Chai Dairy Free Waffles & Berry Compote
These dairy free waffles are fluffy and scented with chai spices! Made with almond milk and coconut oil, they’re a delicious dairy free breakfast option.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Griddle
- Cuisine: American
Ingredients
For the berry compote
- 1 pound frozen mixed berries
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
For the dairy free waffles
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup whole wheat flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon each ground cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and cardamom
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ cup coconut oil
- 1 large egg
- 1 ¼ cups almond milk (we used Califia Farms)
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
Instructions
- Make the compote: Place frozen berries and maple syrup in a skillet over medium heat. Stir for several minutes until fruit is thawed. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch with 1 tablespoon water, then pour into the skillet and heat until the sauce is thickened. Add additional cornstarch mixed with water for a thicker sauce, if desired.
- Heat waffle iron on high heat.
- In a medium bowl, combine flours, baking powder, spices, and salt; mix to combine.
- In a microwave-safe bowl, melt coconut oil. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg, then add milk, coconut oil, vanilla, and maple syrup.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined; do not overmix.
- Pour the batter into the heated waffle iron and cook the waffles until golden brown. Remove the cooked waffles and place on a baking sheet without stacking. Make to order or place in a 300F oven to keep warm.
Oh man. These were SO GOOD!! The chair flavor was delicious and the waffles were perfectly crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Instead of all-purpose flour I used oat flour to keep things whole grain. Delicious!
So easy and delicious!
I might just try these this weekend!
YUMMM. I definitely will be making this.
Your waffles are definitely a must make over the weekend. I love that you’ve used cardamom!
Man I really need to get a waffle maker… these look amazing and I love the chai flavouring, this is my ideal breakfast :)
We have used our waffle maker so many times since we got it a few weeks ago, I don’t know how we lived without it :) So yes, you need one!
Made these this morning and they were a hit! Thanks for a great recipe.
So glad that the worked for you — that is fantastic! Thank you for letting us know!
Chai just means tea