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Dessert

Peanut Cookies

A cookie made with shortening, syrup, sugar, egg, milk, flour, roasted peanuts, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Peanut 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix the shortening, syrup, sugar, and egg until well combined.

  3. Add enough milk to achieve a mixable dough.

  4. Stir in the sifted flour, crushed peanuts, salt, baking powder, and baking soda.

Shape and bake

  1. For rolled cookies, roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

  2. For drop cookies, add more milk for a softer dough and drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet.

  3. Bake rolled cookies for about 10-12 minutes and drop cookies a little longer until golden.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Milk + peanuttop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,048 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Peanut + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  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).

Milk and flour 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
Adds fat that makes the cookies tender and rich.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, helping the cookies stay soft.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure to the cookies.
Sifted flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and brown.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar, egg, milk, flour, meat. 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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