You can get by with a $20 waffle maker if you’re not making waffles in high volumes and don’t mind a slightly longer cook time. That’s what we used for our first several waffle parties. However, if you’re serious about making waffles, you’ll probably want to consider something slightly higher-end.
Our favorite waffle iron so far is the Waring Pro WMK300. We now have two of these! Although its $60-$80 price range is significantly above the $15-$20 starting point for waffle iron prices, it’s about the best you can get before jumping into the $200-and-up “industrial” models. It has a temperature adjustment, a removable tray to catch overflow, a higher power rating than most other models (1200 watts–this equates to a faster cooking time) and a grill that rotates 180 degrees after you close it to help spread the batter evenly and make the waffle somewhat fluffier. We got by for years with much more basic waffle irons, but recently decided to purchase one of these because we make so many waffles–however, this one is now our favorite by far. To get waffles with a crispier outside, we often leave them in for half a minute to a minute past the time the built-in timer goes off.
Although we haven’t had the opportunity to try one, Krups manufactures a similar model (FDD912) in the same price range.
Note that if you get a waffle maker with a larger grid, you definitely want the higher wattage, as the same energy must be spread across a much larger area.
I finally made the jump to the expensive KitchenAid waffler because I’ve broken every other waffle iron I’ve ever had including the Waring. I’ve got a nasty habit of waffling things that they just aren’t made to do. One thing that waffles really well, but the iron won’t like is pizza dough to obtain a pizza crust that holds a LOT of toppings and comes out of the regular oven with a really crispy crust. But what really kills the irons (tends to break the hinge) is loading up a big pile of cooked long pasta (like spaghetti or linguini) to make a crust to load up ala pizza, but especially making waffled potato latkes. To get them to come out really well you’ve got to start with a huge pile of latke ‘batter’ and keep pressing down as it cooks until the waffle iron will close (otherwise they just don’t form and cook right) and latke ‘goo’ makes it into all the waffle pockets. The KitchenAid is the only non-commercial model I’ve found that can handle the regular abuse I inflict.
One other good thing about the KitchenAid is that I’ve never had a sticking problem no matter what I put into it with the exception of the very first waffle I made when it was new (and the manual tells you to expect that and to also toss the first one anyway).
The last thing I really like about it is that the waffles are really large! My usual practice is to break them into quarters and get four people eating at once, then give extra quarters to anyone still hungry.
But also keep in mind that with most waffle batters each waffle will use about 2 cups of batter!
Brivari,
Wow, it sounds like you do some very serious waffling! I can imagine that non-liquid (or exceptionally thick) ingredients create a bit of difficulty with closing the iron. Using pasta to make pizza is pretty creative. When I’m making waffles that have solid or semi-solid ingredients, I generally chop them up into pretty small pieces. Otherwise, I have difficulties cooking them. However, it’s good to know there’s at least one waffle iron model out there that’s exceptionally heavy duty. Of the three Warings we’ve owned, I’ve had issues only with one – it suddenly refused to heat up before the end of the warranty period, and Waring sent a replacement that’s worked great for several months now. But I now know not to test the hinges too much.