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 ↓
Soft Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the dough
Cream together the butter and sugar until white.
Stir in the beaten eggs.
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk or water and add it to the mixture.
Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough to a thickness that is not too thin.
Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly golden.
Once cooled, store the cookies in a closed tin box.
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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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
- Butter
- Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender, crumbly texture.
- Sugar
- Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and browning during baking.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that makes the dough stiff enough to roll and cut.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the dough to help it rise and brown.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out. Adding flour gradually lets you judge the dough's firmness. Too much flour makes cookies dry and tough, while too little leaves the dough too soft to cut cleanly.
Swap the nutmeg
The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, flour, milk):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, 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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