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Sugab Cookies

Cookies made with sugar, butter, buttermilk, baking soda, and flour, baked until lightly golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Buttermilk and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Sugab Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the granulated sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Add the buttermilk and baking soda, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is very soft.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°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. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Granulated sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown and crisp during baking.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender texture.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that works with the baking soda to lift the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to release gas, helping the cookies rise and spread.
Flour
Provides structure, which sets the dough's softness and the cookies' final shape.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is very soft. Flour absorbs liquid and builds gluten, so adding it too quickly or too much can make the dough stiff and the cookies tough. Stopping once the dough is very soft keeps the texture tender.

“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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