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Dessert

Wafers, Geneva

Thin, soft wafers shaped into horns, filled with jam and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Wafers, Geneva

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the powdered sugar and whisked eggs, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add the dried flour and beat until smooth.

Bake and shape

  1. Butter a baking sheet and drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture at regular intervals.

  2. Bake in a gentle oven (300°F / 150°C) until set but still soft.

  3. Remove from the oven and shape into horns, placing a small piece of bread in the wide end to hold the shape.

  4. Return to the oven until crisp.

Finish and serve

  1. Once cooled, remove the bread and fill with jam and whipped cream before serving.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, 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. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the batter cream into a smooth base.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift, setting the batter as it bakes.
Dried flour
Forms the structure of the wafer, holding its shape while it bakes crisp.
Powdered sugar
Adds sweetness and dissolves easily into the batter for a smooth texture.

The step that matters

Return to the oven until crisp. The wafers must be baked until set but still soft so they can be shaped into horns; a second bake then dries them to crispness. Baking too long before shaping makes them brittle and impossible to curl.

“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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