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Dessert

Dolly Parton's Christmas Sugar Cookies

A simple sugar cookie dough flavored with lemon rind, baked until pinkish-brown.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 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 ↓

Dolly Parton's Christmas Sugar Cookies

Oven350°F
Timeabout 8 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream sugar and butter in a medium-size bowl.

  2. Beat in eggs, then flour and lemon peel.

  3. Knead gently together.

  4. Don't overwork the dough, but make sure it's consistent.

Chill and shape

  1. Chill dough for 3 hours.

  2. Preheat oven to 350°F.

  3. Roll out dough with rolling pin.

  4. Cut into shapes and place on greased cookie sheets.

Bake

  1. Bake until tops get pinkish-brown, about 8 minutes.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

696Calories
20 gProtein
18 gFat
112 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12

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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 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. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Sugar
Sweetens the dough and, creamed with butter, helps give the cookies a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and its creaming traps air for a softer texture.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the fat, binding the dough together.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies' shape as they bake.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma that comes through the sweet, buttery flavor.

The step that matters

Don't overwork the dough. Excess kneading or mixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes cookies tough and dense instead of tender.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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