Name: Nut Cookies
Ingredients: ¼ cup butter; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ cup sugar; 1 cup flour; 2 eggs; ¼ cup milk; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 cup chopped nuts

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 ↓

Nut 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. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.
Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until combined.
Fold in the chopped nuts.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto buttered baking sheets.
Decorate each cookie with halves of nuts.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or 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 + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,180 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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 sugar to add tenderness and richness to the cookies.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set in the oven.
Flour: Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and become lighter.
Sugar: Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Chopped nuts: Add crunch and nutty flavor throughout the cookies.