Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Water 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.
Make the dough
Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add water and baking soda, mixing well.
Gradually add flour until the dough is soft and can be rolled thin.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough.
Cut into desired shapes.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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 helps them take on a light golden colour in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat that gives the cookies a tender, crumbly texture.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the dough to lighten it and help the cookies rise slightly.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that lets the dough be rolled thin and hold its cut shapes.
The step that matters
Gradually adding the flour. Adding flour gradually lets you stop when the dough is soft yet rollable. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and the cookies dry and tough, while too little leaves it too sticky to roll and cut cleanly.
“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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