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Dessert

Hickory Nut Wafers

A sweet wafer made with sugar, butter, sour milk, egg, and hickory nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Hickory Nut Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the sour milk and egg, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the chopped hickory nuts.

Bake

  1. Roll the dough thin like a wafer.

  2. Bake until lightly golden, then sprinkle with sugar.

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. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough rich and tender while creaming with sugar traps air.
Sugar
Sweetens the wafers and helps them brown and crisp in the oven.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that helps tenderize the dough.
Hickory nuts
Add nutty flavor and texture to the wafers.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Wafers only turn crisp if the dough is rolled very thin, because thick dough stays soft and cakey in the middle. Thin dough also bakes evenly and browns before it dries out.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg):

  1. Pecansfits better
  2. Almondfits better
  3. Cocoafits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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