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 ↓
Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the egg and sour milk, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and cream of tartar.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined. Stir in the rose water.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut with cookie cutters.
Place cookies on a baking sheet and sift sugar over them before baking.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,516 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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 structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lightness.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown lightly while creaming adds air.
- Sour milk
- Supplies acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the cookies rise and stay tender.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
- Rose water
- Provides the floral aroma that defines the flavour of this cookie.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour in portions and stirring only until combined keeps gluten development limited, so the cookies stay tender rather than tough.
“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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