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Dessert

Vanilla Cookies

Vanilla cookies made with butter, flour, sugar, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Vanilla 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.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

  2. Add the milk, vanilla, cream of tartar, and baking soda; mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is soft and manageable.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and sprinkle sugar on top.

  2. Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly 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.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air, giving the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Creams with butter for lightness and adds sweetness and surface crispness.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together when rolled and cut.
Cream of tartar
Acidic ingredient that stabilises texture and works with baking soda to aid rising.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas, helping the cookies rise and brown.
Milk
Adds moisture to the dough, softening it and contributing to browning.

The step that matters

Mix in the flour gradually. Adding flour gradually lets the dough reach a soft, manageable texture. Too much flour at once makes the dough dry and tough, since flour proteins develop gluten when worked.

“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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