Name: Malta Vita Cookies
Ingredients: ¾ cup butter; 1 cup sugar; 2 eggs; 2 tablespoons buttermilk (or sour cream); 2 cups flour; 1¼ cups Malta Vita; ¾ teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup raisins (chopped)

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Malta Vita Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Beat the eggs and add them to the mixture.
Stir in the buttermilk (or sour cream).
Mix in the flour, Malta Vita, and baking soda.
Fold in the chopped raisins.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto buttered baking sheets.
Bake for about 15 minutes.

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.

Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,721 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,973 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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 trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown while creaming aerates the dough.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to lift the cookies and encourage browning.
Buttermilk: Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and contributes moisture and tenderness.

“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.