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 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the dough
Cream the butter and lard with the sugar.
Add the beaten egg and beat thoroughly.
Mix in the milk.
Sift in the flour, salt, and baking powder, mixing until soft.
Add more flour if necessary.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough to 1 inch thick.
Cut with cookie cutters.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) until 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 + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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 and lard
- Provide fat that creams with sugar to trap air and give the cookies tenderness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and helps it brown while creaming with fat for texture.
- Flour
- Forms the dough structure that holds the cookies' shape during baking.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and lighten.
The step that matters
Adding flour gradually. Mixing in flour until the dough is just soft keeps it tender; overworking develops gluten, making the cookies tough and hard to roll.
“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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