Name: Cheese Wafers
Ingredients: 2 ounces grated cheese; 2 ounces flour; 2 ounces butter; a little salt; a grain or two of Cayenne pepper; 1 egg yolk; a few drops of lemon juice

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cheese Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

Mix the grated cheese, flour, and butter together in a bowl.
Add salt, Cayenne pepper, egg yolk, and lemon juice, and knead without using water.

Shape and bake

Roll out the mixture thinly on a floured surface and cut into small cakes.
Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 4 to 5 minutes.
Serve warm.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Grated cheese: Provides rich savory flavor and fat that shapes the wafer's taste.
Flour: Forms the structure that holds the dough together when rolled and baked.
Butter: Adds fat that makes the wafers tender and crisp.
Egg yolk: Binds the dough and adds richness to its texture.

The step that matters

Roll the dough thinly. Thin cakes bake quickly and crisp evenly. Thick pieces stay soft in the centre and may brown unevenly before drying out.

Swap the lemon

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

Figfits about as well
Lemonthe original
Plumfits about as well
Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, flour, butter, pepper, egg. 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.