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Dessert

Chocolate Wafers

Chocolate wafers are thin baked treats made with shortening, sugar, flour, baking powder, eggs, grated chocolate, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Chocolate and walnut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,548 recipes. Both carry 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine, which smells roasted, nutty. The science ↓

Chocolate Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the shortening and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs, grated chocolate, and sifted flour mixed with baking powder, then mix until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  2. Flour + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,873 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the wafers together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add moisture and structure to the wafers.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives a short, crisp bite.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown while baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven to lift and lighten the dough.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and darkens the color of the wafers.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough dries out and crisps in the oven, while thick dough stays soft and cakey in the middle. Even thickness also helps the wafers bake evenly.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, chocolate. 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.

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