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Dessert

Shrewsbury Wafers

A sweet, oat and coconut wafer baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Shrewsbury Wafers

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, beat the sugar until fluffy.

  2. Add the melted butter, rolled oats, shredded coconut, salt, and vanilla. Mix well.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop the mixture by teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet, spacing them one inch apart.

  2. Bake until golden brown. Allow to cool before serving.

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. Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Oats + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Oats + coconuttop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together522 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Sugar
Sweetens the batter and, when beaten, helps create a light, fluffy base.
Melted butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the wafers stay tender and brown.
Rolled oats
Provide the main structure and chewy texture of the wafers.
Shredded coconut
Adds chewiness, moisture, and toasty flavour as it browns.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Wafers continue to firm up as they cool, so underbaking leaves them soft and pale, while overbaking makes them dry and bitter. Watch the colour rather than the clock.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, oats, vanilla):

  1. Blueberryfits about as well
  2. Coconutthe original
  3. Bananafits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, oats, vanilla. 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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