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Dessert

Highland Cookies

A simple cookie made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking powder, and milk, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Highland 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, butter, and eggs until smooth.

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

  3. Stir in the milk to form a soft dough that is easy to handle.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin on a floured surface and cut with a biscuit cutter.

  2. Bake on a well-greased baking sheet for 5 to 6 minutes in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the cookies and carries flavor.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once its starches set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the cookies and gives them a lighter texture.
Milk
Adds moisture so the flour hydrates into a soft, workable dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown at the edges in the oven.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thickness controls how the cookies bake. Rolled too thick, they stay doughy in the middle and may not cook through in the short bake time. Rolling evenly also keeps them baking at the same rate.

“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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