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Dessert

Flemish Wafers

A light, airy waffle made with flour, sugar, butter, eggs, yeast, milk, lemon zest, and optional cream, dusted with powdered sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Flemish Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a pan, combine flour and warm milk mixed with strained yeast.

  2. Make a soft, smooth paste and let it rise in a warm place.

  3. Once risen, add egg yolks and lemon zest rubbed into the sugar and butter.

  4. Whip egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold into the mixture.

  5. Optionally, add cream and mix well.

  6. Return the paste to rise again until doubled in size.

Cook and serve

  1. Preheat your waffle irons and lightly grease with butter.

  2. Fill one side of the irons with the batter and cook over heat.

  3. Once golden, turn the wafers and cook until done.

  4. Remove wafers, place on a plate, and dust with powdered sugar.

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

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten structure that holds the waffles together.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they add lightness and help the waffles rise and stay airy.
Egg yolks
Add richness, tenderness and colour to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the waffles brown.
Yeast
Ferments the paste so it rises, giving the waffles an airy, light texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the waffles brown in the iron.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lightness. Stirring them vigorously knocks that air out, while gentle folding keeps the batter light and well risen.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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