Why it works: Caraway and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
New Year's 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.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs, sour milk, baking soda, mace, and caraway seeds.
Mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough out on a floured surface with a little sugar.
Cut into shapes and place on a baking sheet.
Bake for about 10 minutes or until lightly 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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Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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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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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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to add tenderness and richness to the cookies.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and helps it brown, and adds a crisp sugared surface when rolled.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
- Sour milk
- Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour milk to lift the cookies and aid browning.
- Flour
- Forms the stiff dough that gives the cookies their structure.
The step that matters
Mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough. Too little flour leaves the dough sticky and hard to cut, while too much makes the cookies dry and tough. A stiff dough holds its shape when rolled and cut, so the cookies bake with clean edges.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, milk, caraway, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Turmericfits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, milk, caraway, 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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