Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Graham 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make and shape the dough
In a bowl, mix the sour cream, sugar, and baking soda.
Gradually add graham flour until the dough is workable.
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Bake
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.
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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Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together30,481 recipes
Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the dough.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown during baking.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
- Graham flour
- Forms the structure of the dough, which is added until it can be rolled out.
The step that matters
Gradually add graham flour until the dough is workable. Adding flour gradually lets you stop at the point where the dough rolls out without becoming stiff. Too much flour makes cookies dry and dense, while too little leaves a sticky dough that is hard to cut.
“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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