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Waffles, Made Without Yeast or Soda

A waffle batter made with flour, butter, milk, eggs, and salt, without yeast or soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Waffles, Made Without Yeast or Soda

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix 1 ¼ cups of flour with ½ teaspoon of salt.

  2. Dissolve 2 ounces of butter in 1 pint of hot milk and let it cool.

  3. Beat the yolks of 3 eggs in a separate bowl.

  4. Add the cooled milk and flour alternately to the egg yolks.

Fold and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites in a clean bowl until firm peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter without overmixing.

  3. Bake the waffles immediately in a preheated waffle iron.

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the waffle together as it sets.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and emulsify the batter, while whipped whites lighten its texture.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the finished waffle.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and supplies moisture for a tender interior.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that makes the waffles light. Overmixing deflates that air and toughens the batter by developing gluten, so fold gently until just combined.

“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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