Skip to main content
Dessert

Wafers

A sweet wafer made with powdered sugar, flour, brandy, vanilla, butter, egg yolks, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Vanilla and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vanilla sugar

  1. Chop the vanilla pod into small pieces and pound it with the sugar in a mortar.

  2. Sift the mixture through a fine sieve.

Make the batter

  1. Combine the egg yolks, vanilla-sugar mixture, sifted flour, and brandy in a pan.

  2. Warm the milk in a basin.

  3. Dissolve the butter in the warm milk.

  4. Once melted, pour the buttered milk into the pan with the other ingredients.

  5. Mix until the batter is thin and glossy.

Cook the wafers

  1. Heat the tongs over a stove or clear fire.

  2. Grease the inside surfaces of the tongs with butter or oil.

  3. Place a spoonful of batter in the tongs and close them immediately, ensuring the batter fills the wafer holes.

  4. Cook on the fire, turning occasionally, until the wafers are done.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Brandy + vanillatop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Egg yolks bind the batter and help the wafers set firm when cooked.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin batter together as the wafers set.
Butter
Melted into the milk, it adds richness and tenderness to the wafers.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the wafers brown lightly on the tongs.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavor to the batter.
Milk
Thins the batter to a pourable consistency and adds moisture.

The step that matters

Cook the wafers over the fire, turning occasionally. The batter is thin and cooks quickly, so uneven heat or too little turning can scorch the wafers or leave them pale and soft in the center. Turning evenly lets both sides set and brown at the same rate.

“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.

You might also like

Vanilla Ice CreamVanilla Ice Cream108 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipesBrandy CreamBrandy Cream21 recipesBrandy PuddingBrandy Pudding13 recipes