Why it works: Cream and butter 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 ↓
Aunt Betsey Bennill's Sour Cream Jumbles
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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the sour cream, sugar, butter, and egg until well combined.
In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until a soft dough forms.
Shape and bake
Pat out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.
Place the cut dough on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Cream + sugartop 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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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity helps the leavening react for a tender texture.
- Butter
- Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb in the cookies.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure as the cookies set.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas for lift and spread.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity that works with the baking soda to help leavening and keep texture tender.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in stages and mixing only until combined keeps the dough soft. Overmixing develops gluten, which makes cookies tough and dense.
“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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