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Dessert

Chinese Cookies

A shortbread-style cookie made with pastry flour, butter, lard, brown sugar, vanilla, and cold water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Chinese Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the pastry flour and baking soda.

  3. In another bowl, cream together the butter, lard, and brown sugar.

  4. Add the vanilla extract and cold water to the creamed mixture.

  5. Combine the wet and dry ingredients until well mixed.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the dough into small balls, about the size of a nutmeg.

  2. Place the balls 4 inches apart on an ungreased baking pan.

  3. Bake for 20 minutes.

  4. Let the cookies stand in the pan for 5 minutes before carefully removing them.

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. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + vanillatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,241 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + vanillatop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Pastry flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookie together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sugars and spreads the cookie so it rises and browns.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour, and helps the cookies spread and crisp.
Lard
Adds tenderness and a soft, short texture to the cookie.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and molasses flavour, and promotes browning.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter, lard and brown sugar. Beating the fats with sugar traps air in the mixture, which affects how the cookies rise and spread. Cream until light and fluffy so the texture is even.

Swap the vanilla

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillathe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar. 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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