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Sweet Wafers
One pint flour, one tea-cup sugar, three eggs, one table-spoon butter, flavor with lemon, mix into a batter same as for cake, and bake in wafer-irons.
A four-ingredient batter meant for a pair of long-handled wafer irons held over coals. The whole thing hinges on getting the batter thin enough to spread and the iron hot enough to set it fast.
- Liquid is missingTwo cups of flour, three eggs, sugar and a spoon of butter make a stiff paste, not a batter that will spread in an iron. Many nineteenth-century wafer batters were thinned with milk or water to about the consistency of heavy cream; adding roughly 1/2 to 3/4 cup and judging by eye is a reasonable approach.
- A pint of flourFlour was measured by volume in this book: one pint is 2 cups, or about 8 to 9 oz depending on how it was scooped. Weigh at 8.5 oz if you want repeatable results.
- The tea-cupA tea-cup in American books of this period runs between two-thirds and three-quarters of a modern cup, not a full 8 oz. Start with 3/4 cup sugar and reduce if your irons scorch, since sugar is what browns first.
- Flavor with lemonThis means grated zest, lemon extract, or a spoonful of juice. Zest from one lemon gives the cleanest result; juice thins the batter and should be counted toward the liquid.
- Wafer ironsTwo hinged cast-iron plates on long handles, greased and heated directly on the fire. A modern pizzelle iron is the closest equivalent; a stovetop krumkake iron works as well. A waffle iron will not do the same thing, as the batter is far too thin for deep grids.
- Heat and timingThe iron should be hot enough that a drop of water skitters. A wafer takes 30 to 60 seconds a side, no more; these are sugar-heavy and go from pale to bitter quickly.
- Shaping while hotWafers are pliable for only a few seconds off the iron. Roll them around a wooden cone or a spoon handle immediately if you want cornets or cigars, or lay them flat under a plate to keep them from curling.
- YieldAbout 24 to 30 wafers of 4 inches. They stay crisp two or three days in a tin and go limp fast in humid weather.
Wafers are among the oldest surviving forms of baked sweet in Europe, made since the medieval period between engraved iron plates held in the embers, and the trade of the wafferer is documented in English and French records. American cookbooks of the 1880s, including The Dixie Cook Book, still list them, because the equipment suited a hearth or a stove top rather than a bake oven, and because a thin crisp wafer was the natural accompaniment to tea, ices and wine jelly. The irons were often family property, sometimes cut with initials or a pattern, and it is often suggested that this is why so many nineteenth-century recipes give no size or timing at all: the cook already knew her own irons, and the printed recipe only needed to supply the proportions.