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Dessert

Boston Cookies

Cookies made with butter, sugar, flour, raisins, baking soda, eggs, salt, nutmeg, and optional flavoring, topped with sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Boston Cookies

Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boston 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the flour, chopped raisins, baking soda dissolved in warm water, eggs, salt, nutmeg, and any additional flavoring. Mix well.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin or drop spoonfuls onto baking sheets.

  2. Sprinkle granulated sugar over each cookie before baking.

  3. Bake until golden brown.

  4. Allow to cool before serving.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

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

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
Creamed with sugar to trap air and give the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and, creamed with butter, helps create a lighter texture and browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts to lift the dough and promote spreading and browning.
Chopped raisins
Add chewy moisture and sweetness throughout the cookies.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in warm water. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly through the dough. Clumps can leave bitter or soapy spots and uneven rising.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Jalapenofits less well
  4. Capersfits less well

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