We love waffles at our house, but I make them only occasionally. There are two reasons for this—I don’t get to eat breakfast with everyone else when I make waffles, as I’m stuck tending the iron, and waffles have a tendency to set off the smoke alarms.

A well-seasoned waffle iron is…frankly, disgusting. It’s covered in a perfect layer of burnt butter. Unfortunately, that butter smokes every time you use the iron.

Even if I turn the extractor fan on, the smoke alarms go off.

So I’ve learned I can only make waffles on days it will be warm enough to open all the windows at 6.30 am. A good breeze blowing through clears the smoke and prevents the alarms from going off.

That usually means waffles only in summer, but since it’s been unusually warm, I decided to make pumpkin spice waffles on Sunday.

The morning was warm, so I opened the windows and turned on the extractor fan.

But the air was so still, the smoke hung indoors.

My son wasn’t yet out of bed when the alarms went off…

Well, no one was late for breakfast, at least.

Here’s a double recipe, so you’ll have waffles left over for breakfasts all week.

2 cups all purpose flour

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

¼ tsp ground cloves

2 cups cooked, mashed pumpkin

4 large eggs, separated

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2 ½ cups milk

200g butter, melted

Combine all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin, egg yolks, and brown sugar. Add the milk and whisk until the sugar dissolves. Gradually whisk in the butter.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and mix just until all the flour is moistened.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Fold the egg whites into the batter.

This batter is thick, and you will need to spread it with a spatula to get it evenly spread in the waffle iron.

Try them with warm applesauce!