How can I keep my waffle iron relatively clean when making waffles? I do not make waffles overly frequently, but when I do I tend to make a mess of my waffle iron. I use a ladle to place waffle batter in the middle of my waffle iron. On accident I occasionally overfill the iron so that when it is closed batter runs out the sides. The obvious answer is use less batter, but then I tend to use too little. To complicate matters I rarely use the same waffle batter recipe and some tend to make a larger mess than others.

Aside from eyeballing is there a good ratio of batter amount to iron size I should be using? Is there a way to easily cleanup a waffle iron after use that does not take a long time?
Replace your ladle with an ice cream scoop.



You will be able to control the amount of dough for each waffle much easier.
For my waffle iron and scoop I use two scoops.

An additional advantage over a ladle, is that the dough releases much easier
from a scoop, which reduces the probability of making a mess.