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Dessert

Chocolate Cookies

A baked cookie made with butter, sugar, eggs, chocolate, vanilla, walnuts, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Chocolate Cookies

Why it works: Chocolate and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,020 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Chocolate Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and shape the dough

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

  2. Add the eggs, melted chocolate and vanilla, and mix well.

  3. Stir in the chopped walnuts and flour until combined.

  4. Spread the mixture on a flat tin and cut into squares.

  5. Place half a walnut on top of each square.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 10 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Chocolate + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,020 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

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

  3. Vanilla + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,730 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Chocolate + walnuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,548 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 give the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Creaming with butter adds sweetness and helps give structure and browning.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure as they set in the oven.
Sweet chocolate
Provides the main chocolate flavour and sweetness in the cookies.
Flour
Provides structure that holds the squares together as they bake.

The step that matters

Baking time. Ten minutes is a short bake, and cookies continue to firm as they cool. Pulling them once the edges are set and the centres look just barely dry helps keep them soft rather than hard and dry.

Swap the walnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, chocolate, vanilla, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Hazelnutfits better
  3. Macadamia nutfits better
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, chocolate, vanilla, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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