Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Sour Cream 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 the dough
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, cream together the lard or butter and sugar.
Add the sour cream and beaten eggs, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda with the sour cream.
Mix the baking powder with the flour.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients until a dough forms.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or 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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together35,032 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Vanilla + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,241 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and tang, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cookies rise.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour cream to produce gas, lifting the cookies and encouraging browning.
- Baking powder
- Provides additional lift as it releases gas during baking, giving a lighter texture.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, helping bind the dough and set during baking.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown and develop a tender crumb when creamed with fat.
- Lard or butter
- Provides fat for tenderness and flavour when creamed with the sugar.
The step that matters
Combining the baking soda with the sour cream. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Mixing it into the sour cream first lets the reaction start before baking, so the leavening is evenly distributed and the cookies rise properly.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, cream, egg, vanilla, flour):
- Raisinfits better
- Figfits better
- Coconutfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cream, egg, vanilla, flour. 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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