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Dessert

German Waffles

A sweet, yeasted batter made with milk, butter, eggs, flour, rose water, baked in a waffle iron and served with butter, sugar, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

German Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Warm the milk in a large bowl and cut in the butter, stirring until softened.

  2. Beat the eggs until thick and smooth, then gradually stir them into the milk and butter mixture, alternating with the flour.

  3. Add the yeast and cover the bowl with a clean cloth. Set it in a warm place to rise until bubbly.

  4. Once risen, stir in the rose water.

Cook the waffles

  1. Preheat the waffle iron and grease it with butter.

  2. Fill the iron with batter, close it, and cook over the fire, turning to cook both sides evenly.

  3. Remove the waffles with a knife, grease the iron again, and repeat.

  4. Serve the waffles hot with butter, 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs add structure and richness, setting the batter as it cooks.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the waffles together once cooked.
Fresh yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, making the batter bubbly and light.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps keep the waffles tender and greasing prevents sticking.
Milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise until bubbly. Yeast needs a warm place and time to ferment. Under-proofed batter yields dense, flat waffles, while the rise gives the light, airy texture.

“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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