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 ↓
Cleveland Cookies, Mrs. Melzor Watson
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
Beat the egg in a mixing bowl until light.
Gradually add the sugar while mixing.
Add the milk and stir well.
In a separate bowl, mix the flour with the baking powder.
Combine the flour mixture with the wet ingredients.
Stir in the melted butter until the mixture is fine and white.
Bake and finish
Drop spoonfuls onto a well-greased baking pan and pat down with your hand.
Sprinkle with sugar and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden.
Once cooled in the pan, cut into small squares and store in a moist place.
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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Flour + buttertop 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).
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
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they beat.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown at the surface.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, giving a tender texture.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and lighten.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and softens the dough.
The step that matters
Bake until golden, not for a fixed time. Oven strength varies, so colour is a better guide than the clock. Edges brown first while the centre sets as it cools, so pulling them at the first golden colour keeps them from drying out.
“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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