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 ↓
Sugar 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.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream the butter and powdered sugar together.
Add the eggs and mix well.
Stir in the baking powder, salt, and your choice of flavoring.
Gradually add flour until the dough is workable.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden.
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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,404 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
- Creamed with sugar to create a tender, rich texture and carry flavor.
- Powdered sugar
- Creams with butter for sweetness and a fine, tender crumb.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add moisture and structure.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the oven so the cookies rise slightly and stay light.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that lets the dough be rolled and cut into shapes.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the dough is workable. Adding too much flour at once or too much overall makes cookies dry and tough, because flour proteins and starch build structure as they absorb liquid. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough rolls out without sticking.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, 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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