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Dessert

Sour Milk Cookies

Cookies made with sour milk, sugar, butter, flour, baking soda, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Sour Milk Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the sugar and butter or lard together.

  2. Add the egg, sour milk, and water; mix well.

  3. Sift the baking soda with the flour and gradually add to the mixture.

  4. Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut out cookies and place them on a greased baking tin.

  2. Moisten the tops with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of sour milk to produce gas, helping the cookies rise and turn tender.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that shortens gluten strands, giving a tender, crumbly texture and richness.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds a slight tang and moisture.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown and crisp at the edges during baking.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the sifted baking soda and flour. Baking soda must be evenly distributed through the dough and react with the sour milk. Sifting prevents lumps of soda that leave bitter, uneven spots, and adding flour gradually keeps the dough from becoming tough.

“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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