Skip to main content
Dessert

Almond Wafers

A light, almond-flavored wafer made from cornflour, ordinary flour, butter, sugar, egg, and almond essence, baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Almond Wafers

Why it works: Flour and almond are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,673 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Almond Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Sift the cornflour, ordinary flour, and baking powder into a bowl.

  2. Rub in the butter, then add the sugar and almond essence.

  3. Beat the egg and knead it into the mixture until a paste forms.

  4. Roll out the paste on a floured surface to about ⅛ inch thick.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into finger shapes, sprinkle with castor sugar, and place on a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 10 to 15 minutes until light brown.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Butter
Adds fat that makes the wafers short and tender as it is rubbed into the flour.
Egg
Binds the mixture into a paste that holds its shape when rolled and cut.
Cornflour
Lightens the texture, giving the wafers a crisp, delicate crumb rather than a chewy one.
Baking powder
Produces gas that lifts the dough slightly, keeping the wafers light rather than dense.

The step that matters

Rolling to about ⅛ inch thick. Thin, even dough bakes through and crisps evenly. Thicker pieces stay soft in the centre and may not turn crisp, while thinner spots can overbrown before the rest is done.

“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.

More almond wafers recipes

Rolled 6 See all 29 →

You might also like

Almond Sponge CakeAlmond Sponge Cake26 recipesAlmond CustardAlmond Custard22 recipesCoconut Almond CakeCoconut Almond Cake17 recipesAlmond Paste TartletsAlmond Paste Tartlets10 recipes