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Dessert

Grandma's Cookies

A simple coconut cookie made with sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt, and fresh coconut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Grandma'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. 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.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in hot milk and add to the mixture.

  5. Stir in the flour, cream of tartar, and salt.

  6. Fold in the fresh coconut.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

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

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

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 add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar and hot milk to lift and lighten the cookies.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and helps with rising and texture.
Fresh coconut
Adds moisture, chew and coconut flavor throughout the cookies.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in hot milk. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved and evenly distributed, or pockets of it can leave soapy, bitter spots and uneven rising. Mixing it into the hot milk first helps it disperse before it meets the dough.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Coconutthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour, cream. 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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