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Dessert

Small Shortbreads in the English Style

A shortbread cookie made with flour, butter, lard, sugar, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Small Shortbreads in the English Style

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter, lard, sugar, and eggs lightly together.

  3. Gradually add the flour to form a dough with minimal handling.

  4. Let the dough rest for a short time.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough into 4 oz. pieces.

  2. Shape each piece into a round.

  3. Pinch the edges.

  4. Dock the rounds.

  5. Cut each round into four equal pieces.

  6. Place the pieces on paper-lined baking sheets.

  7. Bake until golden.

  8. Let the cookies cool.

  9. Cut along the previously marked lines.

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 + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 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. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

All-purpose flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tender, rich texture and flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cookies short and tender.
Caster sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add moisture and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Handle the flour gently. Adding flour with minimal handling keeps gluten development low, so the cookies stay tender rather than tough and dense.

“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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