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Dessert

Cream Wafers

A sweet confection made by cooking sugar, water, glucose, cream, and vanillin into a paste, then shaping into wafers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Cream Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the syrup

  1. In a bright copper kettle, combine sugar and water. Stir until sugar dissolves.

  2. Add glucose and cream of tartar (or acetic acid). Wash down the sides of the pan.

  3. Cook the mixture to 244°F (118°C).

Cool and work the paste

  1. Pour the mixture thinly onto a wet marble surface.

  2. After 2 minutes, sprinkle cold water over the batch and let it cool.

  3. Use a cream scraper to work the mixture into one lump.

  4. Cover with a clean heavy bag and let it 'mellow' for 30 minutes.

  5. Knead the mixture into a smooth paste.

Add cream and form wafers

  1. In a double boiler, warm 5 pounds of cream with vanillin over low heat, stirring until just hot.

  2. If too thick, add a little cold water.

  3. Drop the mixture onto wax paper. Once firm, turn the paper upside down and remove it.

  4. Allow the wafers to dry before serving.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Forms the crisp, sweet structure of the wafer as it cools and sets.
Glucose
Interferes with sugar crystallization, keeping the wafer smooth rather than grainy.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallizing during cooking.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, softening the texture and giving a creamy flavor.
Vanillin
Provides a vanilla aroma that flavors the cream filling.

The step that matters

Cook the mixture to 244°F (118°C). The final temperature sets how much water remains in the sugar. Stopping early leaves the wafer soft and sticky, while cooking too long makes it hard and brittle.

“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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