Name: My Grandmother's Cookies
Ingredients: 3 eggs; 2 cups sugar; 1 cup butter and lard; ⅔ cup sour milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 2 teaspoons cream of tartar; vanilla extract; flour (enough to roll)

Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

My Grandmother's 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.

Prepare

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a large bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, butter and lard, sour milk, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Add vanilla extract for flavor.
Gradually add flour until the dough is workable.
Stir the mixture only with a spoon.

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.

Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,187 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together35,032 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together43,450 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Eggs: Bind the dough and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Butter and lard: Add fat for tenderness and a short, crumbly texture.
Sour milk: Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the leavening agents.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acid in sour milk to produce carbon dioxide for rising.
Cream of tartar: Adds acidity that works with baking soda to leaven and help browning.
Sugar: Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown during baking.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture only with a spoon. Vigorous mixing or overworking the dough develops gluten and makes cookies tough. Gentle spoon mixing keeps them tender while the ingredients still combine evenly.

“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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My Grandmother's Cookies