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Dessert

Vinegar Cookies

Cookies made with treacle, butter or lard, eggs, vinegar, ginger, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Vinegar Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix treacle, butter or lard, eggs, vinegar, ginger, and baking soda.

  2. Gradually add flour until dough is firm enough to roll.

  3. Roll dough to about ½ inch thick and cut into round cakes.

Bake

  1. Place cookies on a baking sheet and bake until 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

Treacle
Provides sweetness, moisture and a dark, rich flavour to the dough.
Butter or lard
Adds fat, giving the cookies tenderness and a short texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set.
Vinegar
Acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cookies rise and turn tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the vinegar to produce gas that leavens the dough.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so it can be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until dough is firm enough to roll. Adding too much flour at once or too little overall changes the texture. Flour sets the structure, so the dough must be firm enough to hold its shape without becoming tough from excess flour.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, vinegar, 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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