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Dessert

English Wafers

A sweet dough made from flour, sugar, butter, and milk, rolled into sheets and baked into thin wafers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

English Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter, sugar, and flour together.

  2. Add the milk, mix well, turn out and work until smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough into sheets and cut with a small cutter.

  2. Place the sheets on tins and bake in a not-too-hot oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

755Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog]. 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. See the original page.

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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 sets the wafers as they bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness by coating the flour and shortening the dough.
Milk
Supplies the moisture that binds the dough together.

The step that matters

Bake in a not-too-hot oven. Butter and sugar brown quickly at high heat, so a hot oven can scorch the wafers before their centers dry and crisp. A gentler oven lets them bake evenly through and turn crisp rather than burnt.

“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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