Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Egoless 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the sweet milk and mix well.
Sift in the flour and baking soda, and combine until a dough forms.
Roll the dough very thin on a floured surface.
Shape and bake
Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven until lightly golden, about 8-10 minutes.
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 + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together98,233 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Flour and butter 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
- Butter
- Creams with sugar to add richness and tenderness to the cookie.
- Sugar
- Creaming with butter adds sweetness and helps give a tender crumb.
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough once combined with the liquid.
- Sweet milk
- Adds moisture so the flour and butter combine into a workable dough.
- Baking soda
- Reacts to lift and lighten the cookie and aid gentle browning.
The step that matters
Rolling the dough very thin. Thickness controls how the cookies bake. Thin dough bakes through and browns quickly, while thick pieces stay soft in the middle and can burn at the edges if the oven is too hot.
“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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