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Dessert

Holiday Sugar Cookies

A simple sugar cookie dough made with flour, butter, sugar, egg, milk, and lemon peel or vanilla, baked into cookies.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Holiday Sugar Cookies

Oven350°F
Timeabout 10 minutes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.

  2. In a large bowl, with mixer at medium speed, beat butter and 3/4 cup sugar until light and fluffy.

  3. Beat in egg, milk, and lemon peel until well combined.

  4. Reduce speed to low; beat in flour mixture just until blended.

  5. Shape dough into a disk; wrap and refrigerate at least 2 hours or up to overnight.

Cut and bake

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F.

  2. Grease and flour two large cookie sheets.

  3. On a lightly floured surface, with a floured rolling pin, roll half of the dough to 1/8 inch thickness; keep remaining dough refrigerated.

  4. With floured 3‑inch assorted cookie cutters, cut dough into as many cookies as possible; reserve trimmings for rerolling.

  5. Place cookies, 1 inch apart, on prepared cookie sheets.

  6. If desired, with a drinking straw or skewer, make a 1/4‑inch hole in the top of each cookie for hanging.

  7. Sprinkle some of the remaining 1/4 cup sugar over cookies.

  8. Bake until golden, about 10 minutes, rotating cookie sheets between upper and lower oven racks halfway through baking.

  9. With a wide spatula, transfer cookies to wire racks to cool completely.

  10. Repeat with remaining dough and trimmings.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

857Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
124 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Butter or margarine
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds fat for a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise slightly and stay tender.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure.

The step that matters

Chill the dough before rolling. Cold dough is firm and easy to roll thin without sticking, and it holds its shape in the oven instead of spreading.

Swap the lemon

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

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

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