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Dessert

Buttermilk Cookies

A simple baked cookie made with sugar, butter, buttermilk, baking soda, eggs, nutmeg, lemon juice, flour, and topped with raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Buttermilk Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

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

Make the batter

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

  2. Add the buttermilk, baking soda, eggs, nutmeg, and lemon juice; mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the batter is thick enough to drop from a spoon.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto greased baking pans.

  2. Place a raisin in the center of each cookie.

  3. Bake until golden brown.

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. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Buttermilk + spreadtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the creamed butter hold air for a tender texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lightness.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda for rising and tenderness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, binding the batter as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cookies, with enough added to keep them from spreading.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter is thick enough to drop from a spoon. Too little flour makes the batter spread thin and the cookies flat, while too much makes them dry and dense. Adding it gradually lets you stop at the right consistency.

Swap the lemon

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, buttermilk, egg, nutmeg, flour, spread. 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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