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Dessert

Cinnamon Wafers

A sweet, cinnamon‑flavored wafer made from sugar, butter, eggs, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cinnamon Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  3. Add the cinnamon and baking soda.

  4. Gradually mix in enough flour to form a dough that can be rolled out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Butter + cinnamontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown and crisp in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the wafers a tender, short texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add moisture and structure as they are beaten in.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough be rolled out and hold its cut shapes.
Baking soda
Reacts to lighten the dough slightly and encourages browning during baking.
Cinnamon
Adds the main spiced aroma and flavour to the wafers.

The step that matters

Gradually mix in enough flour. Adding flour slowly until the dough just holds together keeps it workable. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and the baked wafers dry and tough, because extra starch absorbs liquid and develops a firmer structure.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour. 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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