Why it works: Butter and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 118,967 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Hard Sugar Cakes
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
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the dough
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs, baking soda, and cold water; mix well.
Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.
Bake
Bake in the preheated oven 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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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together122,807 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Creamed with the sugar to add richness and a tender texture to the cookies.
- Sugar
- Creamed with the butter for sweetness and to help give the cookies structure as they bake.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the cookies.
- Baking soda
- Reacts to lift the dough slightly and promote gentle browning in the oven.
The step that matters
Bake until lightly golden. Sugar and butter brown quickly at high heat, so removing the cookies once they are just golden keeps them from drying out or turning bitter-tasting at the edges.
“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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