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Lemon Cookies

Cookies made with lemon oil, cooking ammonia, milk, sugar, eggs, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Lemon 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.

Prepare the liquids

  1. Dissolve the cooking ammonia in 1 cup of milk.

  2. In a separate bowl, dissolve the sugar in the remaining milk.

Make the dough

  1. Add the beaten eggs, butter, and lemon oil to the sugar mixture and beat well.

  2. Gradually add flour until the dough is manageable.

  3. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, 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

Cooking ammonia
Releases gas when heated, which leavens the dough so the cookies rise and turn light.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cookies in shape as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a rich texture.
Eggs
Add moisture and structure, helping bind the dough and set during baking.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Milk
Provides moisture that hydrates the flour and dissolves the other ingredients.

The step that matters

Dissolving the cooking ammonia in the milk. Cooking ammonia works as a leavener only when it is fully dissolved and then heated, releasing gas that lifts the dough. Undissolved pockets can cause uneven rising or a sharp taste, and the cookies should bake through so any residual ammonia smell cooks off.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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