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Dessert

Corn Flake Cookies

Cookies made with corn flakes, coconut, butter, sugar, and vanilla.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Coconut and vanilla match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,294 recipes. Both carry ethyl caproate, which smells fruity, apple peel. The science ↓

Corn Flake 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.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the egg, sugar, and butter together until smooth.

  2. Add the corn flakes, coconut, and vanilla extract; mix well.

  3. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into the mixture and combine to form a dough.

  4. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead until manageable.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough as thin as possible, sprinkling sugar over it while rolling.

  2. Cut into shapes and bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until lightly browned.

  3. Remove from the baking sheet while hot using a spatula.

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. Coconut + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,294 recipes

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

  2. Corn + coconuttop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together306 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  4. Corn + vanillatop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,943 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Butter + coconuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown as they bake.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dough together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise slightly and turn light.
Corn flakes
Add crispness and a toasty flavour to the dough.

The step that matters

Roll the dough as thin as possible. Thin dough bakes quickly and crisps evenly, while thick dough stays soft in the centre and can burn at the edges before it cooks through.

Swap the coconut

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

  1. Coconutthe original
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, corn, vanilla, 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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