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Dessert

Neapolitan Wafers

A sweet waffle made with eggs, butter, flour, sugar, olive oil, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Neapolitan Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the waffle iron according to the manufacturer's instructions.

  2. In a bowl, sift together the flour and powdered sugar.

  3. In another bowl, beat the eggs well and add them to the flour and sugar mixture.

  4. Dissolve the butter in warm water and add the olive oil.

  5. Mix the butter and oil into the flour mixture.

  6. Flavor the batter with a drop or two of the essences.

Cook

  1. Pour the batter into the preheated waffle iron and cook until golden brown.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Olive + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Olive + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,501 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the waffle together as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness and helps the waffle brown.
Olive oil
Adds fat that keeps the batter moist and the waffle tender.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during cooking.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown. The iron must be fully preheated before the batter goes in. Sugar and proteins brown quickly on contact with hot metal, so a cool iron gives pale, soft waffles that may stick.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, flour, sugar, olive, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, flour, sugar, olive, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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