[Sca-cooks] Traditional Wafer Cookies (long)

[johnna holloway]

Basic Sweet Wafer with Butter

1 3/4 - 2 cups flour (varies-- depends on how one measures and if one is
using jumbo eggs)
1 stick (8 Tablespoons or 1/4 pound) melted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 eggs - extra large or even jumbo
pinch salt
Flavoring which can be 2 teaspoons of what you like, anise, almond,
hazelnut, lemon, orange, rosewater, etc.Or you can use ground cinnamon,
or cloves
or combination of spices. Aniseed is traditional.

Mix eggs and sugar together. Then add flour and salt. Then add melted
butter and flavoring. You can do this by hand or use a mixer.
Egg size is a factor some
batches seemed to need 4 eggs; others only three. These 50 cents per
dozen eggs seem to vary some in size.

[Depending on the flavoring chosen, one will have to vary the amount
slightly to get the balance right. This is very much personal preference
as to whether you want a mild or strong taste. You can also use fresh
orange or lemon zest and fresh orange or lemon juice. Also this recipe
can be
adapted to using brown sugar and/or a mix of brown and white sugar.]

Bake according to instructions that come with your irons. Thin with milk
if needed. You'll have to adjust dough depending on thickness or
thinness of the wafers and type of iron being used. In general this
makes a very good "cookie" type of wafer that tastes good and is well
liked.

This makes 42 approximately of the small 3 inch wafers. They keep well
and can be done 2-3 days in advance. Store in plastic boxes. The thicker
wafers travel and store better. Thinner krumkake or rolled wafers are
more fragile and require more care. I tend to make and store flat, as
I usually do this by myself. If you want to make and roll the wafers,
then
have someone else work with you. One person handles the iron while the
other
person rolls the warm cookies.

Historical Notes from Red Spears Banquet--

Scappi's recipes from 1570 calls for wheat flour,
rosewater, sugar, simple water, fresh egg yolks and using almond milk;
it serves as a source of comparison. Translations were made by Lady
Helewyse de Birkestad based upon copies that I found and supplied.

Scappi Cap CXLI , folio 420, book 6.
To make wafers with crumb of bread and sugar.
Take crumb of bread and let it moisten in cold water and strain
 it through a sieve.  Make a paste of it and wheat flour, rosewater
 and sugar and simple water and fresh egg yolks.  Because otherwise
 you won’t be able to make wafers make the paste liquid and firm.
  When you have the irons add a little malmsey
wine, and make the wafers.
If you want it with pulp of capons boiled in water and salt.
  Paste this meat in a mortar and temper with a little cold water
 and pass with the bread crumb
through the sieve and mix together with the other things and make
wafers.
  One can also make with almond milk and egg yolks."

Red Spear's sweet dessert Cialdoni are made using my more traditional
and
perfected recipe of white flour, butter, eggs, and sugar, with chosen
flavorings of lemon and orange. The thinner rolled Cialdoni have a
batter of the same ingredients thinned with the addition of milk. Having
made wafers off and on for most of my twenty-nine years in the Society,
I have found that almost all prefer the sweeter and richer wafer made
with butter and sugar. Aniseed and most rosewater versions have never
won
 many hearts.

One problem with period recipes is that they can stick to even the
non-stick
irons and that slows the process down to the extent that it's really not
practical to make them in quantities for an event. Another period recipe
that I
tried took almost four times longer to make and could only be made one
wafer
at a time due to sticking.

Johnnae llyn Lewis Johnna Holloway
(yes, promised wafer cookbook is coming... one of these days)