Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓
Peanut 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 the dough
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a bowl, mix the batter, sugar, flour, egg, cream of tartar, baking soda, and milk until well combined.
Fold in the chopped peanuts.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered baking sheets.
Bake
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden.
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.
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + peanuttop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,048 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + peanuttop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,427 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as their starches and proteins set in the oven.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the cookie surfaces brown as they bake.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds moisture and structure to the cookies.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the cream of tartar to release gas that lifts and lightens the cookies.
- Cream of tartar
- Acts as an acid that activates the baking soda and helps the cookies rise and stay tender.
The step that matters
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden. Cookies keep firming as they cool, and sugar browns quickly, so overbaking makes them dry and hard. Pull them when the edges are golden and the centers still look soft.
Swap the peanut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, cream, milk):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Peanutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, cream, milk. 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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