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Dessert

Plain Rolled Cookies

A simple cookie made with sugar, flour, shortening, baking powder, egg, milk, salt, and flavoring extract.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Plain Rolled Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the sugar and shortening.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg, flavoring extract, and sifted flour mixed with salt and baking powder.

  3. Add enough milk to form a dough that is just stiff enough to roll without sticking.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to a thickness of ¼ to ½ inch and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until delicately browned, about 10 to 12 minutes.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 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. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together after baking.
Shortening
Adds fat for tenderness and a short, crumbly texture.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise slightly and stay light.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure.
Milk
Adds moisture so the flour hydrates and the dough comes together.

The step that matters

Adding the milk. Too much milk makes the dough sticky and hard to roll and cut, while too little leaves it crumbly. Add it gradually until the dough is just stiff enough to roll without sticking.

“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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