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Dessert

Swiss Wafers

A light, crisp wafer made with butter, flour, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Swiss Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream the butter with the lemon rind until smooth.

  2. Add the sugar and vanilla essence.

  3. Mix in the flour and beaten eggs until smooth.

Bake and shape

  1. Drop small portions of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Flatten the portions into rounds.

  3. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until set and dry on the surface.

  4. Carefully remove with a knife.

  5. Roll the wafers around the outside of greased cornet molds.

  6. Return to the oven until the wafers are a pretty brown color.

  7. Transfer to a pastry rack to cool.

Serve

  1. Fill with whipped cream.

  2. Serve.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Vanilla + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the wafers richness and a tender texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as the wafers set.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as the wafers set.
Castor sugar
Sweetens the wafers and helps them brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Return to the oven until the wafers are a pretty brown color. Thin wafers brown quickly and can go from golden to bitter or burnt in moments. Watch closely, since browning comes from sugars caramelising and the Maillard reaction.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Blueberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, 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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