2¼ teaspoons single acting or
1½ teaspoons double acting baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1-3 cup milk
1½ teaspoons vanilla
Sift flour and measure; resift with salt and baking powder. Cream sugar and shortening until light; beat egg and add to mixture. Add milk, vanilla and flour mixture. Mix well and chill. Roll dough as thin as possible, a small portion at a time. Cut with cookie cutter and bake at 400 degrees temperature for 8 to 10 minutes. Keep dough cool during rolling and cutting.
This traditional recipe will result in a batch of small thin cookies, known as wafers, which have a crisp cake-like texture. Wafers are a familiar cookie to most of us so it might be surprising to hear that this recipe contains a couple of mysteries!
The list of ingredients tells you to add 1 to 3 cups of milk to only 2¼ cups of flour. With that much milk, the resulting batter would be too diluted to provide the right consistency for a wafer. That didn’t seem right, so I researched various vanilla wafers recipes online and found that the milk ingredient measurements ranged from merely 1 tablespoon to only as much as a ¼ cup. Some recipes didn’t even include milk! With that information in mind, this recipe appears to have been printed with a typo, and the original creator most likely intended the milk ingredient to be only ⅓ cup. First mystery solved! Now, for the second one… where were wafers originally created? This question is more difficult to answer.
Wafers have been a favorite cookie across multiple cultures and countries for centuries, which makes it hard to pinpoint an exact story of where and when they first appeared. Historical ideas for their birthplace range from Greco-Roman origins about 2,000 years ago to Western Europe around the 800s to more recent timelines from Europe in the 1300s.
The dates and places may differ but there are commonalities in the recipe components across the various descriptions. The main ingredients are flour, water, and sugar with some additional ingredient variations like honey or molasses depending on the flavor desired for the wafer. Spices were also common additions with options such as cinnamon, cloves, ginger, or almond which allowed for unique combinations in the final treat.
Another favorite spice within wafers – vanilla – is a more recent addition to our collective spice racks. It has only been available since 1841 when it was discovered how to hand-pollinate the vanilla flowers by Edmon Albius, a 12-year-old slave child. Vanilla cannot self-pollinate so, prior to Edmon’s discovery, it was not widely available outside of the areas where it was grown. Fast forward to current times and vanilla, or its flavor compound, vanillin, is widely available which allows bakers and cooks worldwide to include its sweet yet woodsy undertone in a wide range of recipes.
This unique spice cannot be replicated with any other seasoning. Its addition to wafer recipes has helped vanilla wafers become such a versatile favorite around the world that they have been incorporated into both savory dishes as well as classic dessert favorites such as Banana Pudding or Cheesecake crusts. I even found a recipe for Tiramisu using vanilla wafers rather than lady fingers!
This recipe will take some time to finish since it involves chilling the dough and only working a small portion at a time. The extra time to bake up a batch will be worth the trouble though! Homemade vanilla wafers recipes such as this one allow us to create treats within our own kitchens that fill our homes with mouth-watering scents and give our families food to create memories around.
If you decide to try this recipe, we hope you get to enjoy these little cookies in whichever way works best for you. Maybe as a quick snack or as a companion to a cup of tea or coffee on a quiet afternoon. Either way, enjoy!
Research: Jen Freed