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 ↓
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 sugar and lard or butter.
Add the egg and sweet milk, mixing well.
Stir in the lemon juice, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 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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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cookies and, creamed with fat, helps give them a tender texture.
- Lard or butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acids in the dough to produce gas, helping the cookies rise and brown.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidifies the dough, reacting with baking soda to leaven it and keep the texture tender.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies' shape as the dough is worked stiff enough to roll.
The step that matters
Adding the flour gradually. Flour develops gluten as it is mixed, so adding too much or overworking the dough makes cookies tough. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough is stiff enough to roll, keeping the texture tender.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, cream, flour):
- Vanillafits better
- Raisinfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, cream, flour. 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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