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Dessert

Amish Sugar Cookies

A sweet cookie made with sugar, margarine, oil, egg, vanilla, lemon or almond flavoring, water, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Amish Sugar Cookies

Oven375°F
Time12 to 14 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Place sugars, margarine, and oil in a mixer bowl and mix at medium speed until creamy.

  2. Add egg, vanilla, flavoring, and water, and mix at medium speed for 30 seconds, scraping down the bowl before and after adding these ingredients.

  3. Stir remaining ingredients together to blend well; add to creamy mixture and mix at medium speed to blend.

Shape and bake

  1. Form dough into 24 balls using 1 tablespoon dough per ball.

  2. Place balls on cookie sheets that have been sprayed with pan spray or lined with aluminum foil.

  3. Press balls down evenly to ½" with the back of a tablespoon dipped in water.

  4. Bake at 375°F for 12 to 14 minutes, or until cookies are browned on the bottom and lightly browned around the edges.

  5. Remove cookies to a wire rack and cool to room temperature.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

776Calories
20 gProtein
26 gFat
113 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 9 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Olive Oil1 tbsp (14g)119
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Vanilla + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,961 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 the cookies brown and crisp at the edges.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Vegetable oil
Adds moisture and tenderness to the cookies.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to lift the cookies and promote browning.

The step that matters

Pressing the balls down. Flattening the dough to an even thickness ensures the cookies bake at the same rate, so thin spots do not burn while thick centers stay raw.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, cream):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Blueberryfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, cream. 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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