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Walnut Wafers
6 teaspoons flour 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 cup brown sugar 1 cup walnut meats, chopped 1 egg, well beaten Beat egg well and add to the rest of the ingredients mixed well together. Drop from teaspoon in well greased pans and bake in a moderate oven. Remove from pan while hot with a heated and greased spatula. Makes two dozen cookies.
This is essentially a nut meringue rather than a cookie dough: one egg, a cup of sugar, a cup of walnuts, and just enough flour to bind. The batter is very stiff and very sweet, and the wafers spread and crisp as they bake.
- Get them off the pan fastThese set hard as they cool and will weld to the sheet. The recipe says to remove them while hot, with a heated and greased spatula; loosen them as soon as the pan is out of the oven. If they harden before you get to them, a brief return to the oven will soften them again.
- Moderate ovenRoughly 350-375F. Small wafers of this kind should take somewhere around 8 to 12 minutes; they are done when the surface looks dry and crackled and the edges are set. They will still feel soft in the centre and firm on cooling.
- That flour quantity is correctSix teaspoons is two tablespoons, and that is all this recipe needs. Do not read it as six tablespoons or cups; the flour is a binder, not a structure.
- Brown sugarThe recipe does not specify a shade or whether to pack it; light brown, packed, works. If yours is dry and lumpy, break it up thoroughly or the wafers will bake with gritty pockets.
- Mixing orderCombine the flour, baking powder, sugar and nuts first, then work in the beaten egg. The mixture should just cohere. Resist adding liquid, however dry it looks.
- Pans and liningThe recipe calls for well greased pans, which was the usual instruction. Parchment is more reliable for a high-sugar batter and makes the hot removal easier.
- SpacingDrop small teaspoonfuls well apart, at least two inches. The sugar liquefies and the wafers spread considerably.
- YieldTwo dozen, as stated, if the spoonfuls are genuinely small. They keep about a week in a tin but soften quickly in humid weather.