Name: Gaufres Au Parmesan {Cheese Wafers}
Ingredients: 6 oz. flour; 1 egg yolk; ½ oz. butter; a little milk; 2 oz. grated cheese; salt; pepper; grated parmesan cheese

Why it works: Cheese and parmesan cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,041 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Gaufres Au Parmesan {Cheese Wafers}

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

Make a stiff but smooth paste with flour, egg yolk, butter, milk, grated cheese, salt, and pepper.
Knead the paste well and roll it out.
Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese over the rolled-out paste.
Fold the paste in three and let it rest for 30 minutes.
Roll it out again as thinly as possible.

Shape and fry

Stamp out rounds and let them dry on pastry trays.
Fry the rounds in clarified butter until golden.
Dish up, sprinkle with cheese, and serve 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.

Cheese + parmesan cheesetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,041 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour: Forms the structure of the paste once it is kneaded and rolled.
Egg yolk: Adds richness and helps bind the paste into a smooth dough.
Butter: Adds fat, which gives a tender texture and helps browning when fried.
Grated cheese: Adds savoury flavour and helps the paste brown in the pan.
Grated parmesan cheese: Adds a sharp, salty flavour and crisps and browns on the surface.

The step that matters

Rolling the paste as thinly as possible. Thin dough dries out and crisps evenly when fried, while thick dough stays doughy in the centre. Resting the dough first relaxes the gluten so it rolls thin without shrinking back.

“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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Gaufres Au Parmesan {Cheese Wafers}