Skip to main content
Dessert

Nut Cookies

A simple cookie made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, nuts, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nut Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA very slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter, then add the sugar and beaten eggs.

  2. Sift together the flour and baking powder, then mix into the butter mixture.

  3. Stir in the chopped nuts and lemon juice.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto an ungreased baking sheet, leaving an inch between each.

  2. Sprinkle with additional chopped nuts and bake.

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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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
Creamed with sugar to give the cookies richness and a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cookies rise and turn lighter.
Chopped nuts
Add crunch and a toasty flavour to the cookies.

The step that matters

Leaving space between spoonfuls. Dropped dough spreads as it bakes, so cookies placed too close can merge and bake unevenly. Leaving an inch between each gives every cookie room to spread and brown evenly.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, lemon. 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.

More nut cookies recipes

Hickory 21Chocolate 4 See all 29 →

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesLemon CustardLemon Custard64 recipes