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Dessert

Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate cookies made with butter, chocolate, sugar, flour, egg, baking powder, salt, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Chocolate Cookies

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 ↓

Chocolate 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Melt the chocolate and set aside.

Make the dough

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

  2. Add the egg and melted chocolate, mixing well.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternating with the milk.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into shapes with a small cutter.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake until lightly golden.

  3. Remove with a knife and let cool before serving.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Chocolate + sugartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + milktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the cookies stay tender.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown lightly in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cookies rise and lighten.
Chocolate
Adds chocolate flavor and a deeper color to the dough.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients, alternating with the milk. Adding flour in portions alongside liquid keeps the dough smooth and evenly mixed. Overmixing once flour is in can toughen the gluten and make cookies dense.

“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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