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Dessert

Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate cookies made with brown sugar, butter, lard, grated chocolate, eggs, baking soda, water, vanilla, flour, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chocolate Cookies

Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the brown sugar, butter, and lard until well combined.

  2. Add the grated chocolate, eggs, baking soda dissolved in water, and vanilla extract. Mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough into small balls and place them on a baking sheet.

  2. Press a nut onto the top of each cookie.

  3. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

  1. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Vanilla + nutstop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Chocolate + nutstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together440 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay soft.
Butter and lard
Provide fat that gives the cookies tenderness and a rich texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidity in the dough to help the cookies rise and spread and brown.
Grated chocolate
Adds chocolate flavour and some fat to the dough.
Flour
Provides structure so the dough can be rolled and holds its shape in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and tough, while too little leaves a sticky dough that spreads. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough holds its shape.

Swap the nuts

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, chocolate, egg, vanilla, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, chocolate, egg, vanilla, 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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