Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓
Rich 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the dough
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and mix well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.
If making drop cookies, add water to achieve the right consistency.
For rolled cookies, omit the water and use enough flour to make a stiff dough.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough thinly, cut into shapes, and place on a baking sheet.
Bake until golden brown.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,180 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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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour and butter 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
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the dough brown during baking.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creams with sugar to trap air.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and lighten.
The step that matters
Adding the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Mixing flour in gradually and only until combined keeps the dough tender. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cookies tough. Water or extra flour should be adjusted to match the cookie type.
Swap the nuts
The recipe marks nuts as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, butter, egg):
- Almondfits better
- Macadamia nutfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, butter, egg. 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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