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Dessert

Canterbury Cookies

A sweet cookie made with sugar, butter, egg, cream, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Canterbury 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

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the egg and cream until well combined.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until a dough forms.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are lightly 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the cookies.
Sugar
Creamed with butter for a light texture and adds sweetness and browning.
Egg
Binds the dough together and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cookies as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and spread and brown.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating until light and fluffy traps air in the fat, which helps the cookies rise and gives them a tender texture. Under-creaming leaves a dense result.

“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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