Skip to main content
Dessert

Soft Waffles

A batter of flour, milk, eggs, butter, yeast, and salt baked in a waffle iron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and wheat are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,418 recipes. Both carry (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, melon. The science ↓

Soft Waffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix the wheat flour with the potato yeast, beaten eggs, salt, lukewarm milk, and melted butter.

  2. Set the mixture to rise until very light.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into well-buttered muffin rings.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

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 + wheattop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Potato + wheattop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Milk + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Wheat flour
Provides the main structure that holds the waffles together as they set.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter set and brown.
Potato yeast
Produces gas during rising, making the batter light and airy.
Milk
Hydrates the flour and adds moisture and tenderness to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the rings release and brown.

The step that matters

Let the batter rise until very light. Yeast gas expands the batter and builds its airy texture. Underproofed batter bakes dense, while overproofed batter can collapse and taste sour.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Sweet potatofits about as well
  4. Leekfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, butter, wheat, flour. 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.

You might also like

Deep-Fried Potato BallsDeep-Fried Potato Balls119 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesWheat MuffinsWheat Muffins48 recipesWhole Wheat MuffinsWhole Wheat Muffins12 recipes