Name: Chocolate Cookies
Ingredients: 1 square bitter chocolate; ½ cup milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 2 eggs; ½ cup butter; a pinch of salt; 1 cup sugar; 2½ cups all-purpose flour

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Chocolate Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the well-beaten eggs and melted chocolate.
Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together.
Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough and cut with a small fancy cutter.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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.

Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,404 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,128 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 the sugar to trap air and give the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure of the dough once its starch sets during baking.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the dough so the cookies rise and turn lighter.
Bitter chocolate: Adds deep chocolate flavour and colour to the dough.
Sugar: Sweetens the dough and, creamed with butter, helps it hold air for a lighter crumb.

“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.