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Dessert

Seed Cookies

A simple cookie made with sugar, butter, eggs, sour milk, caraway seeds, nuts, baking soda, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Seed 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

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sour milk.

  3. In a separate bowl, mix the salt, baking soda, caraway seeds, and chopped nuts.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Caraway + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 trap air, giving the cookies a light, tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cookies rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour and leavening gradually and stirring only until combined keeps the dough evenly mixed and limits gluten development, which would otherwise make the cookies tough.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Carawaythe original
  4. Capersfits about as well

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