Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓
Cocoanut Oil 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the coconut oil and sugar.
Beat in the eggs until well combined.
Gradually add flour until the mixture is a workable dough.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.
Bake in the preheated oven 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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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).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
- Coconut oil
- Provides fat that makes the cookies tender and helps carry flavor.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and, creamed with fat, helps give a light texture and browning.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Flour
- Forms the dough's structure, which sets as the cookies bake.
The step that matters
Gradually adding the flour. Adding flour in small portions lets you judge when the dough is workable. Too much flour at once can make the cookies dry and tough, since flour starch and gluten build structure quickly.
“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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