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Dessert

Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate cookies made with butter, lard, sugar, salt, cinnamon, melted chocolate, egg, baking soda, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Chocolate Cookies

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 ↓

Chocolate Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Beat the butter and lard until creamy.

  2. Gradually add the sugar, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the salt, cinnamon, and melted chocolate.

  4. Add the beaten egg.

  5. Add the baking soda dissolved in milk.

  6. Mix in the flour until the dough is manageable.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin.

  2. Cut the dough into desired shapes.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + chocolatetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 give the cookies a tender, rich texture and flavour.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cookies tender and helps them hold a soft crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.

The step that matters

Mix in the flour until the dough is manageable. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which makes cookies tough. Stop once the dough just comes together so it rolls and cuts cleanly.

“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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