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Dessert

Waffles, or Flannel Cakes

A batter of butter, milk, eggs, flour, yeast, and salt baked or fried into waffles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Waffles, or Flannel Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in the warm milk.

  2. Let the mixture cool, then beat the eggs until light.

  3. Stir the eggs into the milk alternately with the flour.

  4. Dissolve the yeast in warm water and add it to the batter along with the salt.

Rise and cook

  1. Set the batter aside to rise until light.

  2. Bake in waffle irons or fry on a hot griddle.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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
Add structure and richness, and help the batter set as it cooks.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the waffles their body.
Yeast
Produces gas during rising, making the batter light and airy.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.

The step that matters

Set the batter aside to rise until light. Yeast needs time to produce gas and develop flavor. Rising too briefly leaves the waffles dense, while letting the batter sit too long can over-ferment it and weaken its structure.

“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.

More waffles recipes

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