“I feel so relieved. Finally, we have a really good pumpkin waffle recipe,” I told Sam and Lucia at the table. “Yeah,” Sam responded. “I know families that don’t have any pumpkin waffle recipe and their children end up prostituting themselves for drugs.” He might’ve been teasing me. But this much is true: food like this speaks a soothing language, and these waffles are scrumptious.

Wherever you decide to turn for your next pumpkin waffle recipe, please bear in mind the hard lesson we have learned. The high heat of waffle irons scorches the traditional seasonings used in pumpkin recipes, including cinnamon. Especially cinnamon. This recipe only includes freshly grated nutmeg, and the waffles are generous with their pumpkin and buttery waffle flavors.

When Amelia tasted the first waffle off the iron from this winning version, I could hear in her voice that this was the one. “Oh, that is good,“ she said in her heartfelt way. And then I tasted and knew for myself. And then the other family members made the same discovery. “Wait, these are different. These REALLY are good!“

Pumpkin buttermilk waffles

• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour

• 3/4 cup all purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted or very soft

• Three eggs, room temperature

• One cup buttermilk, room temperature

• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree

• 1 teaspoon vanilla
  
  Whisk together the dry ingredients, flours through nutmeg, in a medium large bowl.
  
  Heat the waffle iron.
  
  In a quart-size Pyrex measuring cup, melt and cool the butter, or warm it until very soft. If the butter is cold but not frozen, 110 seconds in the microwave on 50% power works well for us. Add the eggs, buttermilk, pumpkin, and vanilla, to the batter and mix well with a handheld beater for a minute or two. Pour into the dry ingredients and stir with a rubber scraper to make sure no flour pockets are hiding at the bottom of the bowl.
  
  Cook in your preheated waffle iron according to the manufacturer directions. You can put a cooling rack on top of a cookie sheet and keep these warm in at 200° oven if you like, or just wait until the third waffle is in the iron before calling people to the table and the timing will work out. We enjoy these with roasted apples and maple syrup, but they’re also good completely on their own. Amelia likes to sprinkle some cinnamon on top.