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Dessert

Aunt Mb's Cookies

Cookies made with butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Aunt Mb's Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, rub together the butter and sugar until creamy.

  3. Add the well-beaten eggs and sour cream mixed with baking soda.

  4. Stir in the salt and nutmeg.

  5. Gradually add flour until the dough is soft enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin, sprinkle sugar on top, and roll it up.

  2. Cut out cookies and place them on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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
Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tanginess to the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour cream's acidity to lift and lighten the cookies.
Flour
Forms the structure that lets the dough be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is soft enough to roll out. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and dry, producing tough cookies, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape. Adding it gradually lets you stop at the right texture.

“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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