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Peach Cream Wafers

A wafer made by cooking a peach cream mixture to a soft ball and pouring it onto a platter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Peach Cream Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the cream

  1. Combine the sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a copper or granite kettle and stir until well mixed.

  2. Wash down the sides of the kettle and cook to 250°F (120°C) or until it forms a soft ball in cold water.

  3. Pour the mixture onto a damp cool platter.

Add the fruit and color

  1. Use ripe, well-crushed peaches for the fruit layer.

  2. If desired, add color using 1 part yellow to 2 parts red, spread the crushed peaches over the cream, and let it cool slightly.

Work and drop

  1. Work the mixture with a paddle until it creams, cover with a damp cloth, and knead after a few minutes.

  2. Place in a double boiler and stir until warm and thin enough to run through a funnel-dropper; if too thick, add another peach or two.

  3. Drop onto waxed paper in wafers the size of a half dollar.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Sugar + peachtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,308 recipes

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

  3. Peach + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together721 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the sweet, set candy base when cooked to soft-ball stage.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the syrup, helping prevent crystallization for a smoother cream.
Crushed peaches
Adds fruit flavor and moisture to the cream mixture.

The step that matters

Cooking to 250°F (120°C) soft ball. Sugar syrup must reach the right concentration to set into a creamy, tender wafer. Undercooking leaves it too soft to hold shape, while overcooking makes it hard and brittle.

Swap the peach

The recipe marks peach as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Raspberryfits better
  4. Peachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cream. 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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