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Dessert

Diabetic Cookies

A simple cookie made with diabetic flour, cream, butter or bacon fat, and an egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Diabetic Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the egg until light.

  2. Add the cream and beat again.

  3. Add the butter and beat until well combined.

  4. Slowly add Litter's Flour while mixing.

  5. If desired, add a little caraway seed, ginger, or vanilla.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin, working with a small amount at a time.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about ten minutes.

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. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Litter's diabetic flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together when rolled and baked.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Butter or bacon fat
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the baked cookie.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness to the dough.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes through quickly and crisps evenly, while thicker dough can stay raw in the centre or brown unevenly before it sets.

Swap the caraway

The recipe marks caraway as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, cream, butter, egg):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cream, butter, 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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