Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Geneva Wafers
Ingredients
Directions
The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.
Make the batter
Whisk the eggs in a basin.
Beat the butter to a cream and stir it into the eggs.
Gradually add the flour and powdered sugar, mixing well.
Bake and shape
Butter a baking sheet and drop a teaspoonful of the mixture onto it, leaving space between each.
Bake in a cool oven (300°F / 150°C).
When half done, roll the pieces up like wafers and place them in a small wedge of bread or piece of wood to keep their shape.
Return to the oven until crisp.
Fill and serve
Before serving, remove the bread and fill the wafers with a spoonful of preserve and whipped cream.
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.
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as the wafers set.
- Butter
- Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the batter spread and brown.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the wafers together once baked.
- Powdered sugar
- Sweetens the wafers and helps them crisp and brown as they bake.
The step that matters
Rolling while still warm. When half done the wafers are pliable; if they cool and stiffen before being rolled, they crack. Once fully crisp they cannot be shaped, so the roll must happen at the halfway point.
“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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