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Baking

Christmas Lizzies

A festive cookie with raisins, dates, cherries, citrus, pecans, and spices baked at 250°F.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 11,917 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven250 degrees
Time35 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat, tree nuts (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Heat oven to 250 degrees.

  2. Cream together sugar, butter, soda, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  3. Add beaten eggs and mix well, then add buttermilk, liquor, and one-half cup of the flour.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine fruits and pecans with the remaining one cup flour, then mix into a batter.

Bake

  1. Drop by tablespoonful (a clump about the size of a small egg) onto greased cookie sheets and bake for 35 minutes.

  2. Bake one sheet at a time; remaining batter can stand either in mixing bowl or, after being dropped, on baking sheets without loosing its quality.

Store and serve

  1. When done, cool, pack in shallow tin or other container, and cover with cheesecloth.

  2. Drizzle with whiskey and brandy through the chessecloth; repeat every few days.

  3. No need to refrigerate.

  4. Can be made three weeks ahead of christmas.

  5. Can be eaten immediately after cooling.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,027 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together30,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + datestop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

Sugar and cinnamon share little aroma chemistry, yet 30,777 recipes mention both: they likely 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the cookies a tender crumb.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the fruit and nuts together.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to lighten the batter as it bakes.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Bake one sheet at a time. Each cookie is a dense, fruit-heavy batter, so spacing and baking in small batches keeps the drops from merging and helps them bake through evenly. Batter left standing can lose lift as the soda reacts, so bake promptly.

Flavor stand-ins for the clove

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

  1. Cardamomabout as good a flavor fit
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspiceabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, nutmeg, cinnamon, egg, brandy, buttermilk. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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