Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Sugar Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°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
Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the dough
In a bowl, mix the egg, sugar, sour cream, and melted butter.
In another bowl, combine the salt, baking soda, and enough flour to form a dough.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture until well combined.
Shape and bake
Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly 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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Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 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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Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 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
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds richness and structure as it sets in the oven.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown and crisp at the edges.
- Sour cream
- Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
- Melted butter
- Provides fat for flavor and a tender, short crumb.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to produce gas that lightens the cookies.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough so it can be rolled and cut.
The step that matters
Roll the dough thin. Thickness controls how the cookies spread and bake. Thin dough bakes evenly and turns crisp, while thick dough stays soft in the center and may not cook through in the given time.
“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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