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Cream Crackers

A thin, crisp cracker made from flour, sugar, butter, eggs, and baking powder, boiled then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓

Cream Crackers

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Sift together flour, powdered sugar, salt, and baking powder.

  2. Rub in cold butter until well combined.

  3. Add beaten eggs.

  4. Mix into a firm, smooth dough.

  5. Flour the board.

  6. Turn out the dough.

  7. Knead rapidly for a few minutes.

  8. Cover with a damp towel.

  9. Let rest for 15 minutes.

  10. Roll out to 1/8 inch thickness.

  11. Cut with a biscuit cutter.

Boil and cool

  1. Bring water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Prepare a large pan of cold water.

  3. Drop crackers into boiling water a few at a time.

  4. Remove crackers with a skimmer when they rise to the surface and curl at the edges.

  5. Place crackers in cold water.

  6. Lay cooled crackers on greased baking tins.

Bake

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 30 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Flour + eggtop 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once it is mixed and kneaded.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness to the crackers.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Royal baking powder
Releases gas in the dough to lift and lighten the crackers as they bake.
Powdered sugar
Adds a little sweetness and helps the crackers brown during baking.

The step that matters

Boiling the crackers before baking. Briefly boiling the cut dough sets its surface so it rises and curls, then cooling it in cold water stops the cooking. Skipping this or leaving the pieces too long changes their texture and shape.

“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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