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Dessert

Peanut Cookies

Peanut cookies are baked cookies made with butter, milk, sugar, egg, vanilla, flour, baking powder, salt, and chopped peanuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,187 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Peanut Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the dough

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

  2. Add the milk, egg, and vanilla, and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, and chopped peanuts.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto unbuttered baking sheets, spacing them one inch apart.

  2. Bake for 12 to 15 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.

  1. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Peanut + vanillatop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,176 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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 gives the cookies tenderness and a rich flavor.
Egg
Binds the dough and helps give the cookies structure as they set.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the cookies as the dough sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas that makes the cookies rise and turn lighter in texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown at the edges.
Chopped peanuts
Add crunch and a roasted nutty flavor throughout the cookies.

Swap the peanut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Hazelnutfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, sugar, egg, flour, vanilla. 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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