Name: A Plate of Cookies
Ingredients: 1 cup granulated sugar; ½ cup butter, softened; ⅓ cup sour cream or buttermilk; ½ cup chopped raisins; 1 large egg; ½ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 cup all-purpose flour; whole wheat flour, as needed

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

A Plate of Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and egg until light and fluffy.
Sift the salt and baking soda with the all-purpose flour.
Toss the chopped raisins in the flour to separate them.
Add the flour mixture and sour cream alternately to the creamed mixture, beating well after each addition.
Incorporate enough whole wheat flour to form a dough that can be rolled out easily.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Bake in the preheated oven 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.

Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
Flour + wheattop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,373 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter: Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown as they bake.
Egg: Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour cream or buttermilk to lift and lighten the cookies.
Sour cream or buttermilk: Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Whole wheat flour: Adds structure and a nutty flavour, with the dough firm enough to roll out.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits about as well
Raisinthe original
Coconutfits less well
Figfits less well

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