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Dessert

Plain Cookies

Cookies made with lard, sugar, milk, eggs, flour, baking powder, and cream of tartar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Plain Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the lard and sugar.

  3. Add the milk and eggs, mixing well.

  4. Gradually incorporate the flour until the dough is smooth and not sticky.

  5. Stir in the baking powder (or cream of tartar and baking soda if using sour milk).

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly on a floured surface.

  2. Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

  1. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
Creams with the sugar to add fat, tenderness and a soft crumb.
Sugar
Creams with the lard for sweetness and browning during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough once gradually incorporated.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough to lift and lighten the cookies.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with baking soda in sour-milk versions to provide rising and acidity balance.

The step that matters

Gradually incorporate the flour until the dough is smooth and not sticky. Adding flour too quickly can leave lumps or make the dough stiff, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to roll. Gluten develops with mixing, so stopping once smooth keeps the cookies tender.

“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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