Name: Sultana Cookies
Ingredients: 12 lbs brown sugar; 6½ lbs butter and lard; 6 lbs rolled oats; 5 lbs raisins (chopped fine); 3½ oz baking soda; 1 oz cinnamon; 1 qt eggs; 1 qt milk or water

Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Sultana 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

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, butter, lard, rolled oats, chopped raisins, baking soda, and cinnamon.
Add the eggs and milk (or water) to the mixture and combine well.
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

Bake

Place the cookies on a baking sheet and bake 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.

Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Oats + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,394 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together12,655 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay soft.
Butter and lard: Provides fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Rolled oats: Give the cookies body and a chewy, hearty texture.
Raisins: Add chewy pockets of sweetness and moisture throughout the cookies.
Baking soda: Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and spread and brown.
Eggs: Bind the dough and add structure and richness.

Swap the raisin

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits about as well
Blueberryfits about as well
Raisinthe original

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