On a quest to replace Teflon in my kitchen I stumbled across this amazing product! I'm a chef for a 5 star restaurant and, while I purchased this for home use, I'm in love! After a thorough seasoning process (boiled in salt water to remove wax coating, towel dried, brushed on a layer of flax seed oil and placed in oven on broil for 20 minutes) this cast iron waffle maker was ready for testing! I made a 50% whole wheat batter and placed both sides of the iron on two different burners on my stovetop over medium heat. After letting it warm up for about 5 minutes, I took a cold butter stick and rubbed it over both sides of the griddle. Then I poured batter into the "loop" side of the iron (imagine one is the hook and one is the loop) and hooked the other side into place and closed it. I set a timer for exactly 1 minute per side and then flipped it and it was perfect! Crispy edges, fluffy center... mmm it doesn't get better than this! Nom nom nom...

These waffle irons are perfect, if you know how to use a piece of cast iron cookware. Im so glad i bought 2 of them! I started by washing them with dish soap and water to remove as much of the packaging wax as i could. After that i immediately took them outside to the grill, seperated the halves and placed them cooking side down and turned the grill to high. If you let them air dry, they will rust, since you now have bare, raw cast steel. I let them heat on the grill with the lid closed for about 1 hour on high, until they stopped smoking. (Do not do this in your oven, it will fill your kitchen with smoke!) My grill will get up to about 525, just for reference. Once they stopped smoking i turned off the grill, kept the lid closed and let them cool for about 3 hours. After that, i applied a liberal coat of canola oil to the entire iron (canola oil has a higher smoke point than vegetable oil), handle included, and started the grill again, on low this time, still with the cooking side down. My grill reached 425 on the lowest setting, and once the temp peaked, i started a timer for 1 hour. After the one hour, i turned off the grill and allowed them to cool again. I then repeated this oil/heat process 3 times, scraping burnt excess oil with a plastic bristle brush before appling more oil each time. After the third time, they were dark black, shiny and ready to make some delicious waffles. If you have never cooked with cast iron, then you need to know that oil or a non-stick spray such as Pam is your best friend. I heated them on the stove, over medium-low heat, turning them once to heat both sides. After that i opened them up, sprayed a liberal amount of pam to both halves, and dropped in the batter with a soup ladle and closed them up. After about 3 mins i turned them. I turned them again and again every few mins, checking them each time, until they were the perfect golden brown. After the first waffles were done, i re-sprayed them and added more batter. My wife loved them! Once they cooled, i rinsed them with hot water and scrubbed them with the plastic brush again. You should NEVER use soap on a seasoned cast iron pan of any kind- it will ruin all the work you put in by stripping the oil from the metal, causing it to rust. If you are concerned about sanitation, the next time you preheat the iron, the temp will kill anything living on them. After they were "washed" i immediately towel dried them and applied a thin film of canola oil for storage. Just a tip, a 1" paint brush works wonders for appling oil to the waffle cook surface.

So, I always loved the idea of making waffles. My grandmother in law makes them on your regular electronic waffle maker coated with tefflon for non-stick. Super terrible to cook with. I looked online for something ceramic but couldn't find anything. Came to Amazon and found this! The price was so cheap! I was a bit hesitant though because I worried that my waffles wouldn't come out good. But I read some reviews and owning cast iron, I know how easy it is to cook and clean with this type of cookwear. Upon arrival, I red the care instructions and melted the wax off of the waffle maker. It has wax so it won't rust. When delivered, the customer needs to put it in the oven or the grill to melt the wax off. After wax was all off, I seasoned it twice. Today was my very first time making waffles. I made my batter, separated the waffle maker and had each side heating on it's own burner. I buttered both sides before putting my batter; big mistake! It got all stuck cause the butter hardened and cooked and got stuck. I drove to the store real quick to get non stick spray. I proceeded to clean each sides, which didn't take long at all, then had another try at making a waffle. Put batter on one side, attached the other side and flipped the waffle maker just as another reviewer recommended. And WOW! My waffles came out great! Tastes great and look great. No stocking problems! I love this waffle maker: it's safe to cook with, easy to use, and easy to clean! Great product!

Very basic, very old fashioned, low maintenance and takes up very little space. Works wonderful after seasoning, the batter does not stick. So far we love it.

this is an amazing cooking device, but it does take some expertise to prepare it for use. AND the coupling hooks that keep the pans together take a bit of getting used to.

what do i mean seasoning? it needs to be seasoned, like all cast iron cookware. but because it has niggly surface area for waffles, the seasoning is very important...and it explains this perfectly in the directions with it.

basically, it comes coated with a light protective layer of wax that needs to be washed off, or melted off in an oven. then it needs to be coated with high quality oil, baked for an hour, then allowed to cool down in a turned off oven.

i had no idea...i was a nonstick guy until i realized how deadly those surface coatings were...don't know how much amazon will let me say about that, but google it...lots of lawsuits over them. this is not only safe, but gets iron into your diet.

i had one rotten waffle, then i read the directions and seasoned it properly, and the next waffle was almost 100% nonstick. it's amazing you can cook on a healthy surface, food for you, with no deadly chemicals, and get nonstick performance that will last a lifetime...and the price is outrageous! $17 for such an incredible item...i'm almost of a mind to tell them to raise their price! but i hope not.

take some time if you like waffles, and healthy prepared food, and discover this. it heats up super fast, and a few minutes later your waffle is done. as you can read i'm into health, i use organic jam mixed with organic butter, heated, rather than high carb syrup, and a waffle mix that is high protein. a very healthy snack!