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 ↓
New Year's 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 until light and fluffy.
Add the sour milk and eggs, mixing well.
Stir in the baking soda.
Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cookies a light, tender texture and rich flavor.
- Sugar
- Creams with butter for a light, fluffy base and adds sweetness and browning.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda, helping the cookies rise and turn tender.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that lets the dough hold firm enough to roll and cut.
The step that matters
Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll. Adding too much flour at once or too little overall changes the dough's firmness. Flour builds structure as gluten forms, so adding it gradually lets you stop when the dough is rollable without making the cookies tough.
“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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