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Dessert

Rolled Wafers

A sweet wafer made by cooking batter in a wafer iron and rolling while hot.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Rolled Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the wafer iron.

  2. In a bowl, beat the egg yolks and sugar together.

  3. Add the beaten egg whites and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour and stir until combined.

Cook and roll

  1. Place a small spoonful of the batter in the wafer iron and cook until golden.

  2. Remove from the iron and roll while hot.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter together.
Egg whites
Add air and lightness, helping the wafers stay crisp and delicate.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the wafer together as it sets.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown as they cook.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Remove from the iron and roll while hot. As wafers cool they become brittle and will crack instead of bending, so they must be rolled quickly while still warm and pliable.

“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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