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Swedish Wafers
1/2 cup butter 5 ozs. flour 1/2 cup sugar 1/4 teaspoon vanilla 2 eggs Shredded almonds Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, eggs slightly beaten, flour, and flavoring. Drop by spoonfuls on an inverted buttered dripping-pan. Spread very thinly, using a knife, in circular shapes about three inches in diameter. Sprinkle with almonds, and bake in a slow oven. Remove from pan, and shape at once over the handle of a wooden spoon.
Marguerites I 2 eggs 1/4 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup brown sugar 1/3 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup flour 1 cup pecan nut meats, cut in small pieces Beat eggs slightly, and add remaining ingredients in the order given. Fill small buttered tins two-thirds full of mixture, and place pecan nut meat on each. Bake in a moderate oven fifteen minutes.
A thin rolled tuile in the Swedish style, close kin to the French tuile aux amandes. The batter is simple; the difficulty is entirely in the timing at the end.
- Shape them hot or not at allThe wafers stay pliable only briefly off the oven. Bake a few at a time, and curl them over a wooden spoon handle the moment they will lift; any that stiffen can go back into the oven for a few seconds to soften again.
- Slow ovenRead this as roughly 300-325F. These are meant to dry and colour gently to a pale gold at the edges with a paler centre; the recipe gives no time, and wafers spread this thin colour fast, so watch them. A hotter oven browns the rims before the middle sets.
- 5 ounces of flourWeigh it if you can: about 142 g. By the measure this book's period used (4 oz to the cup) that is 1 1/4 cups. The batter is loose by design and a heavy cup of flour will make it stiff enough to resist spreading.
- The inverted dripping-panA dripping-pan is a shallow roasting tin; turning it upside down gives a rimless surface so a spatula can slide under the wafers cleanly. A modern flat baking sheet does the same job, and parchment or a silicone mat is more reliable than butter alone.
- SpreadingUse an offset spatula and work the batter out to roughly the thickness of a coin over a three-inch circle. Leave a good two inches between them, as they spread further in the heat.
- Shredded almondsThis means almonds cut lengthwise into slivers, not the fine flakes sold as sliced almonds today, though flaked will work. Blanched slivered almonds are the closest match on a supermarket shelf.
- Yield and keepingThe recipe gives no yield, and it will depend entirely on how thinly the wafers are spread. They go soft within hours in a humid kitchen, so store them airtight the moment they are cool, and crisp them briefly in a low oven if they slacken.