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Dessert

Wafer Cakes

A light batter is cooked in a wafer iron to make thin wafer cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Wafer Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy.

  2. Melt the butter to remove the salt, then mix it with the sugar.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and rose water to the mixture.

  4. Gradually add sifted flour until you achieve a thin batter.

  5. Stir until the batter is smooth and light enough to break when it falls.

Cook the wafers

  1. Heat the wafer irons, greasing them with butter on a cloth.

  2. Fill the iron with batter and close it.

  3. Cook on the fire for about two minutes, turning frequently if needed.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour 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

Eggs
Beaten eggs add air and lightness, helping the wafers stay light and crisp.
Butter
Melted butter adds richness and flavor and helps the batter spread and brown.
Sugar
Sugar adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown as they cook.
Flour
Flour provides the structure that sets the thin batter into a crisp wafer.

The step that matters

Stir until the batter is smooth and light enough to break when it falls. Batter that is lumpy or too thick will not spread evenly in the iron and can cook unevenly. Thorough mixing with flour added gradually keeps the batter smooth and thin enough to form a uniform, crisp wafer.

“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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