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Dessert

Peanut Wafers

A sweet, crisp wafer made with butter, milk, sugar, flour, egg, roasted peanuts, baking powder, and flavoring.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Peanut Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Chop the peanuts moderately fine.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter, then gradually add the sugar while beating constantly.

  2. Add the egg and beat everything together briskly.

  3. Pour in the milk and sift in the flour gradually.

  4. Add the baking powder and flavoring, then beat until smooth.

Bake

  1. Drop by teaspoons onto greased pans and scatter the peanuts on top.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 6 to 8 minutes.

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 + peanuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Adds richness and tender texture to the batter.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown in the oven.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the wafers together.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the wafers so they rise slightly.
Milk
Adds moisture that loosens the batter.

The step that matters

Cream the butter, then add the sugar gradually. Beating butter with sugar traps air in the fat, which gives a lighter, more even texture. Adding the sugar slowly lets it blend in fully instead of leaving gritty pockets.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

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

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