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Dessert

Vanilla Wafers No. 2

A sweet baked wafer made with flour, powdered sugar, butter, eggs, milk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Vanilla Wafers No. 2

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until just combined.

  6. Stir in the milk until the batter is smooth.

Bake and cool

  1. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are lightly golden.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving a tender, light texture.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the cookies and dissolves easily into the creamed butter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture so the batter becomes smooth and spreadable.
Baking soda
Reacts with the batter to lift the cookies and encourage gentle browning.

The step that matters

Mixing the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Adding flour and then overmixing develops gluten, which makes the wafers tough. Mixing only until just combined keeps them tender.

“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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