Why it works: Milk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the dough
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the granulated sugar and shortening.
Add the sour milk and dissolved baking soda, mixing well.
Beat in the eggs until fully combined.
Gradually add flour until a very soft dough forms.
Stir in the baking powder and your choice of flavoring.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden.
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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Milk + flourtop 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).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Granulated sugar
- Sweetens the dough and, creamed with shortening, helps give the cookies tenderness.
- Shortening
- Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and carries flavor.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cookies rise and brown.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the cookies.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cookies as they bake.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until a very soft dough forms. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and the cookies dry and dense. Adding it gradually lets you stop at a very soft dough, which keeps the cookies tender.
“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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