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Dessert

Cream Crackers

A stiff dough of eggs, cream, and flour, optionally leavened with baking soda, pounded for 30 minutes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Egg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cream Crackers

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Beat the eggs until very light.

  2. Mix the eggs and cream together.

  3. Gradually add flour until a stiff dough forms.

  4. Pound the dough for at least 30 minutes.

  5. If using sour cream, dissolve a little baking soda in some of the cream and add it to the mixture.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Beaten eggs add structure and richness to the dough as they set.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the dough tender and rich.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff dough its structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of sour cream to help the crackers rise and brown.

The step that matters

Pound the dough for at least 30 minutes. Pounding works the gluten in the stiff dough, building the layers and strength that give crackers their crisp, firm structure. Stopping early can leave the dough weak and less flaky.

“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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