Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓
Angie's Sugar 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the dough
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the milk and mix well.
In another bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are 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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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, and helps the creamed mixture trap air for a light texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and, creamed with butter, helps give a tender texture.
- Cream of tartar
- Acidic ingredient that reacts with baking soda to help the cookies rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that makes the cookies rise and spread.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the dough soft.
The step that matters
Bake until the edges are just lightly golden. Baking too long dries the cookies and makes them hard, since the sugar and butter darken and firm as moisture leaves. Pulling them when the edges are lightly golden keeps the centers soft.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, butter, cream):
- Cinnamonfits about as well
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, butter, 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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