Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓
Soft 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.
Make the dough
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add the sour cream, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla; mix well.
Gradually add flour until the dough is very soft.
Bake and serve
Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) until lightly golden.
Let cool before serving.
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,241 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown and stay tender.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and helps the dough cream together.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and acidity that keep the cookies soft.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidity in sour cream to help the cookies rise and stay light.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that sets the cookies as they bake.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the dough is very soft. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and the cookies dry and dense. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough is soft enough, keeping the cookies tender.
Swap the vanilla
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, cream, egg, flour):
- Vanillathe original
- Raisinfits about as well
- Coconutfits less well
- Figfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cream, egg, flour. 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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