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Rumford Waffles

A waffle batter made with flour, eggs, milk, salt, Rumford Baking Powder, and melted butter.

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

Rumford Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Add the egg yolks and milk, beating well to make a smooth batter.

  3. Stir in the melted butter.

  4. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites just before cooking.

Cook

  1. Bake in hot, well-greased waffle irons, turning as soon as possible after pouring in the batter.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + milktop 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. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the waffles their structure.
Eggs
Yolks add richness and set the structure, while whipped whites add lightness.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the waffles to rise and become airy.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and loosens the batter, adding moisture and softness.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and helps the waffles brown and taste rich.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites just before cooking. Whipped egg whites trap air that makes the waffles light. Stirring them in vigorously or letting the batter stand deflates the foam, so the waffles turn out denser and flatter.

“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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