Why it works: Caraway and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
New Year's Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the dough
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add the milk, cornmeal, egg, cream of tartar, baking soda, and caraway seeds. Mix well.
Gradually add flour until the dough is easy to handle.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about ¼ inch thick.
Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden.
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.
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Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the butter cream into a smooth, tender base.
- Butter
- Provides fat for tenderness and richness, and creaming traps air for texture.
- Cornmeal
- Adds a slightly gritty texture and mild corn flavor to the cookie.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the dough so baking soda reacts, helping the cookies rise and stay tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas for lift and light browning.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the dough is easy to handle. Flour adds structure, but adding too much makes cookies dry and tough. Add it in small amounts and stop once the dough is workable.
Swap the caraway
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, egg, cream, flour):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Carawaythe original
- Capersfits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, egg, cream, flour. 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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