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Dessert

Spiced Cookies

Cookies flavored with clove, cinnamon, lemon extract, raisins, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Friday club, Yarmouth, Mass. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Spiced Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream one-fourth cup butter and one-fourth cup lard together.

  2. Add one-half cup brown sugar and one-half cup white sugar, and cream together.

  3. Add one-fourth cup sour milk and one egg, and mix.

  4. Stir in one-half teaspoon soda, two cups flour, one-fourth teaspoon clove, one-fourth teaspoon nutmeg, one-half teaspoon cinnamon, one-half teaspoon lemon extract, one-half cup raisins, and one-half cup chopped walnuts.

Bake

  1. Drop dough onto a buttered tin.

  2. Bake in a quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

946Calories
29 gProtein
29 gFat
144 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 10 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Sour Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Walnut1 walnut half (4g)26
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6

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

By Friday club, Yarmouth, Mass. [from old catalog]. 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. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter and lard
Fat that gives the cookies richness and a tender, short crumb.
Brown sugar and white sugar
Sweetness and moisture, with brown sugar adding a deeper flavor.
Sour milk
Acidity that reacts with the soda to help the cookies rise.
Soda
Leavening that reacts with the sour milk to lighten the dough.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, flour, cinnamon, raisin, walnut, 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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