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Dessert

Cheese Wafers

Cheese wafers are baked sticks made from grated Gruyère, butter, eggs, water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Blend the Gruyère cheese and butter until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and a little water.

  3. Mix in enough flour to form a stiff paste.

  4. Roll out the paste and cut into thin sticks, about ½ inch wide.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until well browned.

  2. Serve hot with fruit or salad.

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. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,253 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Gruyère cheese
Provides rich cheese flavour and fat that keeps the wafers tender and savoury.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the dough become smooth and the wafers brown.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure so the wafers hold their shape when baked.
Flour
Gives the paste body and structure so it can be rolled and cut into sticks.

The step that matters

Baking until well browned. Cheese and butter brown through the Maillard reaction and caramelisation at high heat, giving flavour. Too little time leaves the wafers pale and soft, while too long can scorch the cheese and make them bitter.

“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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