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Baking

Frost Cookies

Cookies made from butter, sugar, milk, yeast powder, flour, and sprinkled with coarse sugar before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Frost Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very 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 butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and beat well for about 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the milk and Rumford Yeast Powder.

  4. Add enough flour to form a smooth dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut with a round biscuit or cake cutter.

  2. Sprinkle thickly with coarse granulated sugar.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until just set, do not brown.

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. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 sugar to trap air and give the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Beaten with the butter for structure and sweetness, and sprinkled on top for a crisp, sparkling crust.
Rumford yeast powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the cookies rise and turn light.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as the cookies bake.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough, softening it and helping it bind with the flour.

The step that matters

Bake until just set, without browning. Baking soon after the dough rises keeps the cookies light and pale. Overbaking dries the cookies and drives browning, which changes the flavour and texture.

“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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