Sweet Wafers

A four-ingredient wafer batter of the kind poured onto a hinged iron and held over the fire. The proportions are terse even by Buckeye Cookery standards, and one measurement is missing entirely.

• The missing liquidThree eggs and a spoon of butter will not wet two cups of flour into a pourable batter. Comparable nineteenth-century wafer batters commonly took milk or cream as well, and the instruction to "mix into a batter same as for cake" assumes the cook knows to thin it to a heavy-cream consistency. Add milk by the spoonful until it ribbons off the spoon.
• One pint flourFlour was measured by volume: a pint is 2 cups, roughly 8 to 9 oz of modern all-purpose flour. Period flour was generally softer and less finely sifted, so measure lightly rather than packing the cup.
• One tea-cup sugarA teacup in these books is smaller than a modern measuring cup, usually reckoned at somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cup. Either way it gives a distinctly sweet, crisp wafer.
• Flavor with lemonThis means lemon extract or a few drops of oil of lemon, not juice. Grated zest from one lemon is a workable substitute; juice will slacken the batter and dull the flavor.
• Wafer-ironsA pair of hinged, long-handled plates heated directly on the stove or over coals. A modern pizzelle or krumkake iron is the direct descendant; a stovetop pizzelle iron behaves most like the original. Grease the plates lightly before the first wafer and rarely after.
• Cooking timeAbout a tablespoon of batter per wafer, pressed closed, needs roughly 30 to 60 seconds per side on a stovetop iron and less in an electric one. Go by color: pale gold, no more. These scorch in seconds because of the sugar.
• Shaping while hotWafers stay limp for only a few seconds off the iron and then set rigid. If you want cones or rolled tubes, lift and shape immediately; otherwise lay them flat on a rack to crisp.
• Yield and keepingYield depends on how much batter each iron takes; at about a tablespoon per wafer this quantity gives well over two dozen. They stay crisp for several days in a tin but go soft quickly in humid air.