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Cookies

A simple cinnamon-sugar coated cookie made with butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot 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. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the well-beaten eggs and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the milk alternately with the sifted flour and baking powder until you have a soft dough.

  5. Roll out the dough lightly.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut into shapes.

  2. Dip in the combined sugar and cinnamon.

  3. Place on buttered baking sheets.

  4. Bake for about 10 minutes.

  5. Remove from the pan.

  6. Cool on a wire rack.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Fat
Creams with sugar to add tenderness and richness to the cookie.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the cookie's shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cookies rise and turn lighter.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown at the edges.

The step that matters

Rolling out the dough lightly. Overworking the dough once flour is added develops gluten, which makes cookies tough. Rolling gently keeps them tender.

“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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