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Rumford Waffles

A batter of flour, eggs, milk, butter, salt, and Rumford Baking Powder cooked in a waffle iron.

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 yolks of the eggs 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 the waffles

  1. Bake in hot, well-greased waffle irons, turning the cakes 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and add structure.
Rumford baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, causing the waffles to rise and become light.
Flour
Provides the starch and protein that form the waffle's structure as it cooks.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, tenderness, and flavor, and helps prevent sticking.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and gives the batter its liquid base and tenderness.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites just before cooking. Whipped egg whites trap air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in, and cooking soon after mixing keeps the leavening working at full strength.

“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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