Name: Cookies
Ingredients: 1 cup caster sugar; 1 cup warmed butter; 1 lb flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 3 eggs; 1 cup milk; caster sugar for sprinkling

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 ↓

Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix caster sugar and warmed butter until creamy.
Add flour mixed with baking powder, then beat in eggs and milk.
Roll out the dough and sprinkle caster sugar on top.

Shape and bake

Cut into small cakes and place on buttered baking tins.
Bake at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Caster sugar: Sweetens the dough and creams with butter to give a light, tender texture.
Warmed butter: Adds fat and richness, and creaming with sugar traps air for a soft crumb.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking powder: Releases gas in the oven so the cookies rise and turn lighter.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Milk: Adds moisture so the dough is soft and easy to roll out.

The step that matters

Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 10 minutes. Small cakes spread and brown quickly, so pulling them out as soon as the edges turn golden keeps them tender rather than dry or hard. Baking powder also loses lift if the dough sits too long before going into the oven.

“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.