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 ↓
Inexpensive Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the lard and butter until combined.
Add the egg and mix well.
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add to the mixture.
Stir in the sugar and enough flour to form a stiff dough.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough thin, cut into pieces, and place on a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven 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 + 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
- Lard and butter
- Provides fat that makes the cookies tender and rich.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the dough to help it rise and brown.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown at the edges.
- Flour
- Forms the structure that holds the stiff dough together.
The step that matters
Dissolve the baking soda in the milk. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the dough. Unevenly distributed soda can leave bitter, soapy patches and uneven rising.
“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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