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Dessert

Plain Rolled Cookies

A simple cookie made from sugar, flour, shortening, baking powder, egg, milk, and flavoring, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Rolled Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the sugar and shortening.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg and flavoring extract.

  3. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder, then add to the mixture.

  4. Add enough milk to form a dough that is stiff enough to roll without sticking.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to about ¼ inch thickness and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until delicately browned, about 10 to 12 minutes.

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 + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Shortening
Creamed with sugar to give the cookies a tender, crumbly texture and fat richness.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise slightly and stay light.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown at the edges.
Milk
Adds moisture so the flour hydrates into a rollable dough.

The step that matters

Adding milk to the dough. Too much milk makes the dough sticky and hard to roll, while too little leaves it crumbly. Add it gradually until the dough is stiff enough to roll without sticking, since flour absorbs liquid at different rates.

“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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