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Dessert

Chocolate Cookies

A chocolate cookie made with Baker's chocolate, butter, sugar, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, raisins, nuts, vanilla, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chocolate Cookies

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Chocolate 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 the dough

  1. Melt the Baker's chocolate and let it cool slightly.

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

  3. Add the egg, sour milk, and vanilla to the mixture and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, raisins, and nuts.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 10-12 minutes or until edges are 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 the sugar to trap air and give the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture to the cookies.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown at the edges as they bake.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dry ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Stirring only until combined keeps the cookies tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, sugar, butter, egg, milk, nuts, vanilla):

  1. Coconutfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Bananafits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, butter, egg, milk, nuts, vanilla. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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