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Baking

Cream Wafers

A baked wafer made from whole wheat flour, Graham flour, cornmeal, cream, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Cream Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl.

  2. Add enough cream to hold the dry ingredients together. Press the dough together with your hands.

Shape and bake

  1. Place the dough on a floured surface and roll it very thin.

  2. Cut the dough into oblongs, 1½ by 3 inches.

  3. Place the pieces in an ungreased baking pan. Prick the surface with a fork or a grater.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until light brown, about 10-12 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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  5. Wheat + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together681 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Whole wheat flour
Provides the main structure of the dough and a nutty, wholesome flavor.
Graham flour
Adds coarser texture and a toasty, nutty flavor to the wafers.
Cornmeal
Adds a slightly gritty crispness to the wafer texture.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture so the dry ingredients bind into a workable dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough dries and crisps evenly in the oven. Thick pieces stay soft in the center and may not brown evenly before the edges darken.

“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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