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Dessert

German Waffles

German waffles are a batter-based waffle made with flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, lard, lemon rind, cinnamon extract, eggs, and thin cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

German Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Rub in the cold lard until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, lemon rind, cinnamon extract, and cream. Mix into a smooth, thick batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a hot waffle iron.

  2. Serve with sugar flavored with lemon.

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. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Forms the main structure of the batter as its proteins set during baking.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the heat.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the waffles rise and turn light.
Lard
Rubbed into the flour to add fat, tenderness and a crumbly texture.
Thin cream
Adds moisture and fat, making the batter richer and more tender.

The step that matters

Bake in a hot waffle iron. The iron must be hot enough to set the batter quickly and brown the outside. If it is too cool, the waffles steam, stick and turn out pale and soggy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Blueberryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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