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Dessert

Almond Wafers

A light, crisp wafer made from flour, powdered sugar, egg white, and almond essence, baked until slightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Almond Wafers

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, powdered sugar, and salt.

  2. Beat the egg white just enough to break it, then add it to the flour mixture until a creamy batter forms.

  3. Flavor the batter with a few drops of almond essence.

Bake and shape

  1. Grease and flour a baking pan.

  2. Drop 1/2 teaspoon of the batter onto the pan and use a wet knife to spread it into a thin, round wafer.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until the edges are slightly browned.

  4. Before removing from the oven, lift each wafer and turn it around a stick while they are still hot.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 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. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + almondtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Egg white
Provides the liquid and protein that bind the batter and set into a crisp, thin wafer.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the thin wafer together as it bakes.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the wafers brown at the edges.

The step that matters

Turning the wafers around a stick. The wafers set and harden as they cool, so they must be lifted and shaped while still hot and pliable. If they cool flat on the pan, they will become brittle and cannot be curled.

“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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