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Dessert

Mothers Oats Wafers

Thin baked wafers made from flour, oats, lard, butter, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Mothers Oats Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar.

  2. Add the Mothers Oats and mix in the lard and softened butter with your fingertips.

  3. Moisten the mixture with very cold water until it is just soft enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough as thin as cardboard and cut it into oblongs measuring 3 inches by 1 inch.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 8 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Oats + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + oatstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,169 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
Forms the main structure of the wafers as the dough sets in the oven.
Lard
Shortens the dough, keeping the wafers tender and crisp rather than tough.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour, contributing to tenderness and browning.
Mothers oats
Adds oat flavour and a slightly crisp, grainy texture to the dough.

The step that matters

Moisten with very cold water. Too much water develops gluten and toughens the dough, while cold water keeps the fat firm so the wafers stay crisp and flaky. Add it only until the dough just holds together.

“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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