Name: Soda Cookies
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; ½ cup butter; ½ cup sweet milk; 2 eggs; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

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 ↓

Soda 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

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
Add the sweet milk and eggs, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda and cream of tartar.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and tenderness to the cookies.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add moisture and structure as the cookies set.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Cream of tartar: Provides acid that reacts with baking soda, helping the cookies rise and stay tender.
Sugar: Sweetens the cookies and, creamed with butter, helps give a light 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.