Skip to main content
Dessert

Wafer Cakes

A wafer made from a stiff batter of powdered sugar, butter, eggs, flour, spices, and lemon or rose water, served with whipped cream and sweetmeats.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Wafer Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix together the powdered sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in enough sifted flour to make a stiff batter.

  4. Add the nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon juice or rose water.

  5. Ensure the batter is very smooth and lump-free.

Bake and shape

  1. Heat the wafer iron on both sides, greasing it with butter before each use.

  2. Pour 2 tablespoons of batter into the iron and close it.

  3. Bake until one side is light brown, then turn to bake the other side.

  4. Carefully remove the wafer with a knife and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

  5. Roll the warm wafers around a smooth stick and remove the stick when cool.

Serve

  1. For serving, fill the hollow with whipped cream and seal the ends with sweetmeats.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 richness to the thin wafers.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and greases the iron so the wafers release cleanly.
Sifted flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a crisp, stiff wafer.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the wafers brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Ensure the batter is very smooth and lump-free. Lumps of flour or sugar do not blend into the batter and can leave uneven, weak spots or stick in the iron. A smooth batter spreads evenly in the thin iron and bakes to a uniform, crisp wafer.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes