Name: Eggless Cookies
Ingredients: 2 cups soft white sugar; 1 cup butter; 1 cup sweet milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt; caraway extract for flavor

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 ↓

Eggless 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. 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

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until smooth.
Add the sweet milk, baking soda, and salt, and mix well.
Flavor the mixture with caraway extract to your taste.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or 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.

Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together77,875 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Milk + carawaytop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together647 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + carawaytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,409 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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 that creams with sugar and gives the cookies tenderness and richness.
Soft white sugar: Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help set the cookie's texture and browning.
Baking soda: Reacts with acidity and raises the dough so the cookies spread and lighten.
Sweet milk: Adds moisture to the dough, helping bind it and soften the crumb.