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Dessert

Oat Wafers

A baked oat wafer made with rolled oats, wheat, flour, butter, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Oats and wheat work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 473 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Oat Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the rolled oats, sugar, wheat preparation, salt, and flour in a bowl.

  2. Work in the butter with your fingertips.

  3. Add enough hot water to hold the mixture together.

  4. Toss the dough on a floured cloth. Pat the dough down.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough as thinly as possible.

  2. Shape the dough with a cutter.

  3. Cut the dough into strips using a sharp knife.

  4. Bake on a buttered baking sheet in a slow oven (300°F / 150°C) until delicately browned.

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. Oats + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Oats + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,939 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Wheat + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,002 recipes

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

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

Rolled oats
Provide the main body and a toasty, nutty flavour in the wafers.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the thin dough together and sets when baked.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the wafers and helps them crisp and brown.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the wafers brown during baking.
Wheat preparation
Adds bulk and wheat flavour to the dough's dry base.

The step that matters

Roll the dough as thinly as possible. Wafers crisp only when moisture can escape quickly. Thick dough stays soft in the centre and may bake unevenly, so thin rolling is what gives the crisp texture.

“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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