Peanut Butter 'n' Carrot Cookies

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. Carrot + sunflowertop 5% of all pairs
   Smell alikestrong
   Cooked together279 recipes

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

2. Peanut + sunflowertop 6% of all pairs
   Smell alikestrong
   Cooked together90 recipes

   Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

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

4. Peanut + carrottop 9% of all pairs
   Smell alikestrong
   Cooked together354 recipes

   Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

5. Peanut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
   Smell alikestrong
   Cooked together1,176 recipes

   Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Peanut butter

Adds fat and nutty flavour, keeping the cookies moist and tender.

Shortening

Adds fat that keeps the cookies soft and tender.

Brown sugar

Adds moisture and molasses flavour, and helps the cookies brown.

Egg

Binds the dough and gives structure as the cookies set.

All-purpose flour

Provides the structure that holds the cookies together.

Baking soda

Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and spread and brown.

The step that matters

Swap the carrot

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

1. Sweet potatofits better
2. Arrowrootfits better
3. Beetrootfits better
4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against peanut, butter, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, sunflower. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.