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Dessert

Eveklasting Cookies

A simple cookie made with butter, sugar, milk, eggs, flour, and baking powder, rolled thin and sprinkled with sugar before baking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Eveklasting Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs, milk, and enough flour to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and sprinkle a little sugar over the top.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked 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

Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and, creamed with butter, helps give a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and carries flavor through the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cookies rise and lighten.
Flour
Forms the main structure that holds the soft dough together when baked.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture to the dough and helps it come together.

The step that matters

Roll the dough thin. Thickness controls how the cookies bake. Thin dough cooks through and turns golden at an even rate, giving a crisp, evenly baked cookie instead of a thick, doughy centre.

“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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