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Dessert

Soft Cookies

Soft cookies made with butter, eggs, sugar, coconut, and flour, topped with a sweet frosting and extra coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Soft Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the beaten eggs, baking powder, milk, and shredded coconut; mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is soft.

  5. Roll the dough to about 1 inch thick.

Frost and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the beaten egg white and granulated sugar to make frosting.

  2. Spread the frosting over the cookies and sprinkle with additional coconut.

  3. Bake until light brown, watching closely to prevent burning.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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
Adds richness and tenderness to the dough as it is creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and stay soft.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps form a soft, cohesive dough.
Shredded coconut
Contributes coconut flavor and chewy texture to the cookies.
Egg white
Whipped into the sugar to form a frosting that sets and browns lightly on top.

The step that matters

Bake until light brown. The frosting and sugar brown quickly at high heat, so the cookies can scorch before the centre is baked. Watching closely keeps them light brown rather than burnt.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, sugar, milk, 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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