Skip to main content
Dessert

Soft Waffles

A batter of sweet milk, butter, flour, eggs, and yeast is folded with beaten egg whites, then baked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Soft Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in the sweet milk.

  2. Stir in the flour until smooth.

  3. Add the beaten egg yolks and yeast, mixing well.

  4. Fold in the beaten egg whites gently.

  5. Set the batter aside to rise until light.

Bake

  1. Preheat the waffle iron and grease it with butter.

  2. Pour the batter into the hot waffle iron and bake until golden.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Yeast
Produces gas as it ferments, leavening the batter so the waffles rise and turn light.
Egg whites
Beaten air folded in gives the waffles a light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter for a tender crumb.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the waffles their structure.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender texture, and helps browning in the iron.
Sweet milk
Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the batter.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites gently. Deflating the whites by vigorous stirring loses the air bubbles that give a light, soft texture. Gentle folding keeps the batter airy so it rises well in the iron.

“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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes