Why it works: Caraway and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
New Year’s Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs and sour milk, mixing well.
Stir in the saleratus, caraway seeds, and mace.
Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out.
Roll and bake
Roll the dough thinly using fine sugar instead of flour.
Cut into rounds and bake for about 15 minutes.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to give the cookies richness and a tender crumb.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown during baking.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness to the dough as they bind with the other ingredients.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the saleratus.
- Saleratus (baking soda)
- Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the cookies rise and stay light.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that lets the stiff dough hold its shape when rolled and cut.
The step that matters
Roll the dough thinly using fine sugar instead of flour. Dusting with fine sugar rather than flour keeps the cookies from drying out and adds sweetness and browning to the surface. Rolling thinly makes the cookies bake evenly and crisp.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, caraway, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, caraway, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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