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Dessert

Sxtsar Cookies

A lard and butter cookie with sugar, eggs, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, lemon extract, nutmeg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sxtsar Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the lard and butter. Add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. Dissolve the saleratus in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  5. Sift the cream of tartar with the flour and add to the mixture.

  6. Stir in the lemon extract, grated nutmeg, and a little salt.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and sprinkle granulated sugar over it.

  2. Cut out cookies and place them on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake quickly until golden.

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.

  1. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown during baking.
Lard and butter
Provide fat for a tender texture and rich flavor.
Saleratus (baking soda)
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas, helping the cookies rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with the saleratus, aiding lift and tenderness.
Milk
Adds moisture and helps dissolve the saleratus evenly through the dough.

The step that matters

Bake quickly until golden. Hot oven heat sets the outside before the cookie spreads or dries out, and the leavening gas is released fast. Overbaking dries the cookies and makes them hard, so watch for golden edges.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream, nutmeg, flour):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream, nutmeg, 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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