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Dessert

Peanut Cookies

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

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.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, shortening, crushed peanuts, syrup, sugar, salt, egg, baking powder, and baking soda.

  2. Add milk as needed to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough and drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake the drop cookies more slowly and a little longer than rolled cookies.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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
Adds fat that tenderizes the cookie and gives a soft, crumbly texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookie together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as the cookie sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and lighten.
Syrup
Adds sweetness and moisture, helping the cookies stay soft and browning.
Roasted peanuts
Add nutty flavor and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Bake the drop cookies more slowly and a little longer than rolled cookies. Dropped dough is thicker and softer than rolled dough, so it needs gentler heat and more time to set through the centre without over-browning the edges.

Swap the peanut

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

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

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