Name: Bowknot Cookies
Ingredients: ½ cup butter; 1 egg; ¾ cup sugar; Grated rind of ½ lemon; 1¼ cups flour; ¼ teaspoon salt

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 ↓

Bowknot 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.

Make the dough

Cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the beaten egg and mix well.
Stir in the flour and lemon rind.

Shape and bake

Take 1 teaspoon of dough and roll it into a strip about 4 inches long.
Twist the strip into a bowknot shape.
Place the cookies on a baking pan, 2 inches apart.
Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) 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.

Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,404 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: Creaming it with sugar traps air and gives the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Sugar: Creamed with butter it adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Egg: Binds the dough together and adds structure and richness.
Flour: Provides the main structure that sets as the cookies bake.