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Dessert

Devil's Food Waffles

A chocolate waffle made with butter, flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, milk, salt, melted chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,287 recipes. Both carry 4-methoxybenzaldehyde, which smells sweet, anise. The science ↓

Devil's Food Waffles

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the flour, baking powder, eggs, milk, and salt; beat the batter hard.

  3. Stir in the melted chocolate, vanilla, and cinnamon.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in an electric waffle iron and serve immediately with whipped cream.

  2. Top with chocolate sauce or sprinkle with powdered sugar and cinnamon.

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. Vanilla + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the waffle together as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the waffle brown as it cooks.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the waffles rise and turn light.
Eggs
Add structure, moisture and richness to the batter as it sets.
Chocolate
Gives the deep chocolate flavor and color that defines devil's food.

The step that matters

Beat the batter hard. Vigorous beating develops gluten in the flour, which can make the waffles tough and dense rather than tender. Mixing should be thorough but the batter needs care so the baking powder still lifts it.

“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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