Name: Good Cookies
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; ½ cup shortening; ¼ cup butter; ¼ cup lard; 4 eggs; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 teaspoon baking soda; nutmeg to taste; French's White Lily flour (as needed)

Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Good 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.

Prepare the dough

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and shortening.
Add the butter and lard, mixing until well combined.
Beat in the eggs one at a time.
Sift together the baking powder, baking soda, and nutmeg, then add to the mixture.
Gradually incorporate enough flour to form a dough.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or 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.

Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

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

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together24,377 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

Sugar: Sweetens the dough and helps it brown while creaming with fat adds lightness.
Shortening: Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cookies a tender texture.
Butter: Adds flavour and fat that contributes to a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the dough to help the cookies rise.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets during baking.