Making Waffles

The inspiration for today's activity came from a McDonald's happy meal toy that we got somewhere (and not McDonald's, smart alecks). It's a little plastic donkey, the one from Shrek, and for some reason he has a waffle in his mouth.  If you swivel its head, it shouts "my waffle!",  "hot waffle!", or "rat waffle!", I'm not sure which, but definitely in the voice of Eddie Murphy.  I have not seen that movie, but the toy certainly made me want waffles for lunch.
The kids and I opted for the basic waffle recipe from Joy of Cooking. They had fun mixing the dry ingredients, but wanted to bite each other about who got use the whisk.  I gave each twin a beater from the hand mixer and lied to them, claiming that these were whisks too, just like their brother's.  Before long, everyone got fairly bored with the mixing, and soon Sam was shining a flashlight into the batter, which is not an official part of the Joy's recipe.
The kids were pretty psyched for that moment when the first waffle came out golden, and this is one of those times when looking at normal things through kid eyes gives a nice perspective.  The batter-to-waffle metamorphosis is pretty magical, like a little batter caterpillar going in her  non-stick coccoon, only to emerge four minutes later as a delicious crunchy-outside-fluffy-inside butterfly.  It really is cooler than you probably remember.  The kids ate a bunch, with some left to share with the neighbor across the hall.
Fun Rating: 7 out of 10. Better than TV and we ended up with lunch.