Flavor trumps appearances

The recipe had me at the picture. It was a beautiful photograph; a stack of dark, gingerbread waffles dusted in powder sugar. You could  close your eyes and easily imagine sweet molasses pooling out onto the plate with every slice of the fork. My mouth watered every time I spotted that recipe from the Smitten Kitchen blog so of course I just had to make this recipe myself. But of course, my product did not resemble anything like the one in the picture.
To be honest, it was although I slapped some wet and sloppy Tennessee mud into my waffle iron. It could have been my impatience to eat dinner or maybe it was due to me forgetting to buy baking powder, but the batter dug into the ridges of both sides of the waffle iron and wouldn't budge. It took unplugging the waffle iron, leaning it over the sink and scrapping madly with a fork to remove the stubborn substance.
I felt a little foolish to be so carelessly seduced by a photograph. The waffle iron was returned to its place in the cabinet and I studied the remaining batter in the metal mixing bowl, wondering what to do with it.
I concluded I had gone too far to toss the batter down the drain. Yes, the whole waffle-making experience had turned into a sordid affair but there was still a chance to turn things around and make a decent dinner. I pulled out a skillet and made gingerbread pancakes instead.  The end result? The batter may had looked like mud but once cooked, it became the same shade of brown as a coffee bean. My pancakes were far from perfect, smooth ovals but when I took a bite, appearances suddenly no longer mattered. Gingerbread pancakes don't need syrup or really even butter; they are so wildly flavorful and sweet that no condiments are necessary. Plus, I realized as a I scraped my fork across the plate to collect a few stray crumbs, who cares about looks when the food taste so spectacular?