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Dessert

Wafers

Thin crisp wafer cookies made with vanilla, sugar, brandy, flour, eggs, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Preheat your wafer iron according to the manufacturer's instructions.

  2. Cut the vanilla pod open and scrape out the seeds.

Make and cook the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the vanilla seeds, sugar, brandy, flour, eggs, and melted butter until smooth.

  2. Pour the batter into the preheated wafer iron and cook until golden brown.

Cool

  1. Remove the wafers and let them cool on a wire rack.

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 + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  2. Vanilla + brandytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together806 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Vanilla + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Vanilla and sugar 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
Bind the batter and add structure as the wafers set.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the thin batter set into a crisp wafer.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown and crisp as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender crispness.
Vanilla
Adds aroma and flavour through its seeds.

The step that matters

Cook until golden brown. Sugar browns quickly in a hot iron, so wafers can go from golden to burnt within moments. Removing them at the right colour keeps them crisp rather than bitter or brittle-dark.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits about as well
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Apricotfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, brandy, flour, egg, butter. 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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