Why it works: Butter and cream 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 ↓
Nut 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. 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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the dough
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sour cream.
Mix in the baking soda and chopped nuts.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until 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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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
-
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Cream + nutstop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together886 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and helps it brown and crisp as it bakes.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a lighter texture.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and tang, keeping the cookies tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
- Chopped nuts
- Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavor.
The step that matters
Mix in the baking soda. Baking soda needs the acidity of the sour cream to react and leaven the dough. Stirring it in well keeps the rise even, so the cookies don't end up flat in some spots and bitter or soapy in others.
Swap the nuts
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, cream):
- Almondfits better
- Pecansfits better
- Filbertfits better
- Nutsthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, cream. 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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