Name: Fruit Cookies
Ingredients: 2 cups sugar; ⅔ cup butter; 1 cup chopped raisins; ½ cup water; 1 egg; 3 teaspoons baking powder; Spices: cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg; Flour (enough to make a stiff dough)

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit 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

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the chopped raisins, water, egg, baking powder, and spices.
Mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough.

Shape and bake

Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Bake in the preheated oven 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.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,075 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter: Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cookies a tender texture.
Sugar: Sweetens the cookies and, creamed with butter, helps create a light, fluffy base.
Egg: Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking to help the cookies rise and lighten.
Raisins: Add chewy texture and natural sweetness throughout the dough.

Swap the clove

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

Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits about as well
Clovethe original
Gingerfits less well

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