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Breakfast

Quick Waffles

A batter of eggs, butter, milk, flour, sour milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and egg whites baked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Quick Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, melted butter, and milk.

  2. Add enough flour to thicken the batter.

  3. In a separate bowl, dissolve the baking soda and cream of tartar in the sour milk, then add to the batter.

Bake

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  2. Bake immediately in a preheated waffle iron.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 whites
Beaten whites folded in trap air, giving the waffles a light, airy lift.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to release gas, helping the waffles rise.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with the baking soda to produce lift and a tender crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds a slight tang.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter.
Flour
Provides structure once mixed into the batter, thickening it so the waffles hold their shape.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Beaten whites hold trapped air that provides much of the lift. Stirring vigorously or overmixing deflates the foam and makes the waffles dense, so the whites should be folded in just until combined.

“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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