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 ↓
Cookies Without Eggs
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the dark brown sugar and shortening until well combined.
Add the grated nutmeg and sour milk to the mixture.
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk before adding it to the bowl.
Stir in the baking powder and enough flour to form a dough that can be rolled out.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.
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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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 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).
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
- Dark brown sugar
- Adds sweetness, moisture and a molasses-like flavor to the dough.
- Shortening
- Provides fat that tenderizes the cookies and helps them hold their shape.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity activates the baking soda so the cookies rise and turn tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to release gas, leavening the dough and aiding browning.
- Baking powder
- Provides additional leavening so the cookies rise in the oven.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough so it can be rolled out and cut.
The step that matters
Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it fully in the sour milk before mixing spreads the reaction evenly, so the cookies rise uniformly instead of showing pockets or bitter spots.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, milk, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, milk, 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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