Name: Spice Wafers
Ingredients: 1 pound all-purpose flour; 1 pound sugar; 7 eggs; grated peel of 1 lemon; grated piece of citron; 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon; 1 teaspoon ground cardamom; ½ teaspoon ground cloves

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Spice Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

In a large bowl, stir together the eggs, sugar, and spices for about 30 minutes.
Gradually add the sifted flour while mixing.
Using a teaspoon, cut the mixture into small wafers.
Bake the wafers on buttered or waxed paper.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,299 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Cardamom + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,114 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Lemon + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together405 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure and moisture to the wafers.
All-purpose flour: Provides the main structure that holds the wafers together as they bake.
Sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown and crisp as they bake.
Ground cinnamon: Adds warm aroma and flavor to the wafers.

Swap the lemon

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

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Lemonthe original
Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, cinnamon, cardamom, clove. 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.