I am finally getting around to making another recipe from my Great-Grandmother’s Old Recipe Box. In the box I found 3 different homemade waffles recipes. Hmmm… which one to choose?? Decisions, decisions.
I really really wanted to make this one.
But I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what “ZO” is. Or maybe it’s “go.” Zuchinni oil? Zebra ointment? Was it some kind of name brand product they had back then? If you DO know what that is…you seriously need to stop what you are doing and leave a comment on this post. I am desperate here…It’s killing me that I don’t know what it is.
This was the second waffle recipe in the box – Sour Milk Waffles.
Ummm… and just who has sour milk hanging around? It’s you homesteaders with a dairy cow or goat, that’s who. You all should try that one out and let me know how it tastes. And let me know if you get diarrhea too. Hee hee.
I decided to go with the Sweet Milk Homemade Waffles recipe.
The problem? I didn’t have pastry flour.
So I googled and found that to make 2 cups of pastry flour you take 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour + add in 2/3 cup of cake flour.
Ah man! I didn’t have cake flour either. Dang. So I Googled again…
To make cake flour: add 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch to a 1 cup measuring cup, then fill the rest of the cup with flour.
I realized this was possible after all.
So I made the cake flour, sifted & mixed it together, then measured out 2/3 cup. Next I added 1 1/3 cup all purpose flour to my mixing bowl. Now we have our 2 cups of Pastry flour. Whew..that was a lot of work!
And I may have made a huge mess of the flour too. That’s just the kind of cook I am. Things like flour just seem to explode around me.
Next it said to sift the dry ingredients. So I busted out my antique sifter and had a blast. I just love using my old antique tools. It’s fun.
Poured the milk into the bowl.
Then separated the yolks from the whites and added in the yolks to the dry ingredients.
It said next to fold in the egg whites beaten stiff.
So I took out my other cool old hand mixer/ egg beater, which works so incredibly well for getting the eggs stiff. I have used it many times before and I honestly think that it’s faster than my kitchen aid for mixing eggs.
To know if your eggs are beaten enough you should have some nice stiff peaks when you remove the beaters.
Fold the beaten egg whites gently into the batter, then add in the melted real butter. Now the batter is ready.
I crossed my fingers and scooped about a cup’s worth of batter and added it to my hot waffle maker.
Cooked till they were done, and.. the homemade waffles recipe turned out BEAUTIFUL! Plus the taste was out of this world. I am not kidding.
Deeee-lish.
Add in some butter and syrup..and it’s heaven.
I will now have the super power to “WOW” all my kids friends in the morning after they have sleepovers… muhahahaha…. Hope you enjoy it too!
- 2 Cups Pastry Flour
- 3 Teaspoons Baking Powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon Salt
- 1 Tablespoon Sugar
- 1 1/4 Cup Milk
- 2 Eggs Yokes & Whites separated
- 2 Tablespoons Melted Butter
- Mix and sift dry ingredients. Add milk gradually and add egg yoke, well beaten. Fold in whites of eggs beaten stiff. Then add in melted butter.
- Pour batter into heated waffle maker and cook till golden.
The item you can’t decipher might possibly be Azo yeast. Back in the day it might have been used in cooking. Just a thought.
Hmmm…. that could be! I wonder….
I believe that Zo is powder cheddar cheese
Might be Argo corn starch a guess?
Zo was a cereal made between 1928-1930
Hi, my grandma has similar handwriting, I think that’s a q. I think it’s an abbreviation for quacker oats. They were often in her waffles when she still cooked.
To the best of my knowledge, a zo is a hybrid cow. It is bred by crossing a yak with a common cow. Hmmm… I’m not sure that is what is referred to in the recipe, 🙂 but hey, ya learn something new every day. 🙂
I wish I knew…it’s just so strange.
Growing up we always used sour milk in biscuits, pancakes and waffles. No we weren’t dairy farmers, just had frugal parents! Never got sick. I think it is similar to using buttermilk.
How cool that you have all those family heirloom recipes! Just a heads up though, sour milk is the same as buttermilk! Lol! You can also make your own sour milk by adding lemon juice to your milk and letting it sit for a couple minutes. I bet you would like the sour milk waffles if you retitled them Buttermilk Waffles!! HTH
OH!!! So funny! That is so good to know, ya learn somethin’ new everyday.
That’s what I do when a recipe calls for sour milk, just add lemon juice to sweet milk, works great!
You can also use 1 TBL of vinegar and then fill the rest up with milk to make 1 cup. Also let it sit in a glass measuring cup for about 5 minutes to give it time to “sour”.
Those look so delicious!!! I love grandma’s old recipes, they are always the best! I certainly don’t know what “zo” is either but I do know how to make sour milk… it doesn’t mean milk that’s gone bad! You mix one tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar to each cup of whole milk (or 2%). Let is sit for 15 minutes… that’ it!!
Tania
Oh…ha ha ha!! Whoops! So is that like buttermilk then maybe? I remember to make buttermilk you do the same thing, adding vinegar.
Is it possible Zo was the same of a sour dough starter?
Could it be green onion for a savory waffle? I’ve seen green onion/bacon/cheddar waffles and green onion pancakes. It’s a long shot for a vintage recipe, but I’m not sure what else might work for a half cup measurement. Good luck figuring it out!
Perhaps the mystery ingredient is some type of oil? The directions list it after the dry ingredients are mixed and I have a few pancake and waffle recipes that call for oil…
I was thinking it might be an oil too…I also found online that Zinc Olmadine is referred to as zo, but I think it is something for chemistry! Ya…probably not what is listed in this recipe…
Karrie, I say G O = ground oats! That’s also why you find it written right after “flour” in the original recipe.
There are lots of cake recipes that use sour milk-its like adding the flavor similar to sour cream. You can easily make your own with vinegar added to milk. I think its 1 T vinegar to 1 cup milk (I wouldn’t use lemon juice because of the lemon after taste). My favorite chocolate sheet cake recipe uses sour milk-I even lick the batter and have never gotten sick. Like other posters have said you can use sour milk and buttermilk interchangeable in recipes (buttermilk does seem to be thicker so it might change the consistency a little bit). Not sure about the zo or go? I like what someone said about ground oats-that could make a yummy nutty waffle.
Hi Karrie! There is a similar recipe at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08jackie-kennedy-waffle
no mention of “ZO” though. I have an inquiry in for you to the King Arthur
Flour company as they have been around for approx. 200 years and maybe
they will know. Can you give me a reference as to how “ZO” is listed in the
recipe…as a ____ quantity ingredient, or how it is referenced in the recipe
instructions…ie-“add ZO” or ??? Sounds like you already have the story on
the “sour milk”, adding vinegar or lemon juice or sub. buttermilk, how things are written can be so confusing. I will let you know if I come up with anything interesting for you.
Thanks Cathy, let me know if they say anything back to ya!! I am still stumped.
Please let us know if you figure out what “Zo” is… It’s killin’ me 🙂 What was her heritage, could it be something shortened to translate? I know calligraphy and she has excellent penmenship, Only a few cap letters does she cheat on, but this does look like a classical Z to me.
At first I thought it could be but… I don’t think it is Ground Oats… Most g-mas at the time would put G.O. then for that type of shortening of a name (IMO).
Agree with others, Sour Milk can be easily mimicked with sour cream (I would probably cut with milk to water it down). I have a few waffle recipes that call for sour cream, delish 🙂
Random – you didn’t happen to go to Western Washington U did you? You look so familiar to me!
Keep up the most excellent blog – love from SoCal
Hi Melissa, I agree with you on this one… I think she would have spelled out the whole word on that one. Nope, didn’t go to WWU… sorry. I think there maybe a look a like out there of me.. 🙂
Oh and she was born & raised in Salt Lake City, Utah..so no other languages.
OK Karrie – I was looking at her writing and – can you find another example of a capital Y that she has written? I think maybe it is Yo for Yogurt!
I found a card with the recipe Yeast rolls and the “y” was normal/different so I don’t think that’s it. Darn..still don’t know.
Buttermilk is the liquid that is left after you make butter from cream.
I SAW A GO AS A MEASURE OF BRANDY.
Also, ZO was a cereal from way way way back!! It was a wheat & barley cereal, similar to cream of wheat so that’s probably what she added. HTH!
Kristen…I think you might be right!!!!!! WOW! http://www.mrbreakfast.com/cereal_detail.asp?id=1360
Very interesting…off to research more.
My Nanny (Grandma) said that this is what it is. (:
In reading the recipe it says mix dry ingredients together. The cereal would be a dry ingredient so it may not be that.
I saw a similar recipe online that used cornstarch. Maybe Argo cornstarch??
Azo was short for Azodicarbonamide. It’s a food additive that is used to stabilize the product (in the U.S., particularly flour. (It has been banned in Europe, as in powder form, can cause respiratory distress/ie: asthma.) “Toxicological studies of the reactions of azodicarbonamide show that it is rapidly converted in dough to biurea, which is a stable compound not decomposed upon cooking.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azodicarbonamide. That seems to make sense to me, since the production of oil years ago was generally from rendered lard rather than the processed oil we find on the supermarket shelves these days!
No real sure what”Zo” is but maybe it’s oleo, my grandmother used to put oleo instead of butter/margarine in her recipes. Some waffle recipes ask for melted butter.
Never mind, i’m sorry I did not see the melted butter on the card. It was a good ole collage try anyways!!!
Hi karrie. Just reading your recipes and the dilemma of those two letters. To me it looks like a ‘go’ so I have to agree with Chris in the earlier comment, it would mean ground oats. I just think when most recipes are written, ingredients are listed in order of preparation, so dry oats would be listed in the dry section. Hope it helps, but you could always just try it and maybe solve the mystery.
For ease of making your version with regular flour and cornstarch- it ends up being:
2 1/3 cups all purpose flour +
2 Tablespoons of cornstarch
🙂
I was thinking it might be Argo cornstarch as well. Perhaps “go” was an abbreviation for the time!
Perhaps it’s not a “G” or a “Z” at all. Perhaps it’s a “V” for vegetable oil.
I believe it is ground oat ,, as u notice all recipes have 2 cups flower except this one 1.5 cups flower and i believe compensated by oats or could be cereal type if it is meant to be nutritive
azo was a type of margarine in old days .,but then it would be too much fat and should be added in the end
Also dunt believe it is somekind of yeast there is already baking soda
I noticed the sour milk conversation in the middle .. Check this article really nice with substitutions : http://allrecipes.com/howto/common-ingredient-substitutions/
P.s. i just came across your blog today as a serach result for cookies recipe .. i eill try it .. I spent almost 4 hours on ur blog and it is amazing 🙂 keep going
Greetings from egypt 🙂
How about H20?… water!
I found your blog on Pinterest looking for Freezer Meals and started to cruise around your blog for other recipes. Found this one…saw all the recipes for waffles. I have to agree with some other people it’s not “zo” it’s “go”. So, I would say it’s ground oats. Which would make sense. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try the recipe with ground oats!
There is nothing better than Grandma’s Recipes. I have tons of my grandma’s and love making them. Plus, I have some from Great Great Aunts and Great Great Grandma’s. So fun!
ZO is a cereal. Check it out http://www.mrbreakfast.com/cereal_detail.asp?id=1360
Azo is a brand, it probably is calling for corn starch, or another dough conditioner of that brand
My grandmother use to talk about a recipe she had that she loved and wished she could make now for us to try, but couldn’t. It contained the ZO cereal as one of the ingredients, and she would tell us of how it was so simple, you just mix the dry ingredients and then add in the cereal and wet items and fry it on the stove. She loved the taste and the ZO gave it all “the extra goodness”. It was really popular when she was young, so maybe that is what she had in mind.
It could be jo, as in a cup of jo (coffee), my mom use to add it to her waffles
Hi Karrie,
I hope you figured out the “zo” mystery. I do have a question regarding the waffles and the freezing and reheating part. Do you need to cool them before freezing? Also what’s the preferred reheat method? I’m new to this freeze ahead meal stuff, but intrigued as I have recently started working from home. Thanks for any and all tips!
Hi Dawnie,
Yes, I like to cool my waffles enough so that they don’t heat up my freezer. My kids usually end up throwing them in the microwave or in the toaster. I prefer the toaster because I like a little crunch to my waffle.
Could “ZO” possibly be short for Matzo mix or Matzo meal? I have seen recipes for pancakes and waffles which contain Matzo mix. Ground matzo (unleavened bread), generally available in fine and medium grain.
I’m thinking grapeseed oil
I guess you can replace the zo with wheat germ.
I believe it is NuttZo, which is an organic 7-nut and seed butter, which was used in many recipes and got its start in Pennsylvania.
Do you know if she used agave? It looks to me like gregg shorthand for the word agave. It isn’t exact but my mother used shorthand and I know over time little alterations take place.
Zo was a cereal produced in the 30’s. Previously marketed as Pep, Kellogg lost the rights to continue with that name and renamed it Zo. I think it’s Greek for life.
I honestly can’t tell you what Zo is in that recipe.
However, looking over the recipe it is some form of leavening agent because the recipe doesn’t have one and all waffle recipes require one.
Vitamin cereal
I found it! What is ZO?
Here you are: A very healthy and popular cereal with vitamins. Perfect to add to a waffle batter, right? I’d guess the cereal was some type of grain.
ZO Cereal | MrBreakfast.com
https://www.mrbreakfast.com/cereal_detail.asp?id=1360
This cereal was described in a magazine ad as “ready to serve breakfast food that is rich in vitamins. … An advertisement of in a 1928 issue of Good Health Magazine titled “‘ZO’ Goes to the South Pole” described the cereal’s connection to Antarctic explorer Commander Richard E. Byrd …
Per my grandma, Zo was a dry grain cereal she used to use in her waffles. When it discontinued, she switched to buckwheat. Maybe try it.