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Dessert

Filled Cookies

Cookies made with a raisin and nut filling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Norton, Caroline Trask · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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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 ↓

Filled Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine 1 cup sugar, 1 cup butter, and lard together.

  2. In 2 cups sweet milk, dissolve 1 teaspoon soda.

  3. Sift 3 1/2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons cream tartar, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and salt.

  4. Cream butter and sugar, then add beaten egg, milk, flour, and flavoring.

Make the filling

  1. In a saucepan, combine 1 cup chopped raisins and nuts, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup water, and 1 tablespoon flour blended with a little lemon juice and water; cook until thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll dough very thin, cut into shapes, place one teaspoonful of filling on each cookie, top with another cookie, and bake.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

976Calories
29 gProtein
32 gFat
140 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 12 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Cream1 tbsp (15ml) heavy51
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Vanilla1 tsp extract (4ml)12
Nutmeg1 tsp ground (2.2g)12
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Norton, Caroline Trask. 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. See the original page.

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. Vanilla + milktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor in the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough and filled cookies together.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Cream tartar
Acidifies the dough and reacts with soda to help the cookies rise.
Soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas for rising and light browning.
Raisins
Add sweetness and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Cook the filling until thick. The flour thickens the filling as it cooks; if it is too thin it can run out of the cookies, and if overcooked it can become stiff and hard to spread.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Figfits about as well
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Strawberryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, vanilla, milk, cream, 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.

More filled cookies recipes

Raisin 4 See all 6 →

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