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Dessert

Geneva Wafers

Geneva wafers are a sweet pastry made from eggs, butter, flour, and powdered sugar, baked into thin wafers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Geneva Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the eggs in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the butter until creamy.

  3. Gradually add the flour and powdered sugar, mixing well.

Bake and shape

  1. Butter a baking sheet and drop a teaspoonful of the mixture onto it, leaving space between each.

  2. Bake in a cool oven (300 °F / 150 °C).

  3. When half done, roll them up like wafers using a small wedge of bread or piece of wood to hold their shape.

  4. Return to the oven until crisp.

Fill and serve

  1. Before serving, remove the bread, add a spoonful of preserve in the widest end, and fill with whipped cream.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Provide structure and moisture, helping the batter hold together and set as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the wafers crisp and brown as they bake.
Flour
Gives the batter structure so the wafers set and hold their rolled shape.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown and crisp as they bake.

The step that matters

Roll the wafers at the halfway point. The wafers are still pliable only for a short time after baking begins. Rolling them when half done, before they cool and harden, lets them keep the curled shape once crisp.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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