Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. 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.
Cream together the lard and sugar.
Add the beaten eggs and sweet milk mixed with baking soda.
Incorporate the cream of tartar with the flour.
Add flavoring to taste.
Mix until very soft and bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.
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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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 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).
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Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together29,399 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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
- Lard
- Fat that creams with sugar to give the cookies tenderness and a short texture.
- White sugar
- Sweetens the dough and helps it brown while creaming aerates it.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add moisture and structure as they set in the oven.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture and dissolves the baking soda so it spreads through the dough.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas that lifts the cookies.
- Cream of tartar
- Adds acidity that activates the baking soda, helping the cookies rise and stay tender.
The step that matters
Mix until very soft. Once the flour is in, overmixing develops gluten, which makes cookies tough. Mix just until the dough is soft and evenly combined.
“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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