Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 7,711 recipes mention both. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
The recipe
Ingredients
Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)
Also mentioned in the method: flour
Directions
Prepare the dough
Take 2 lbs. of flour, ½ lb. of butter, ¼ lb. of lard, ½ lb. of brown sugar, 5 tablespoons of spice, 2 of ginger, 2 of cinnamon, ½ allspice, ½ cloves, 1 pint of molasses.
Mix thoroughly with the hands the flour, butter, lard, spices and sugar. Add the molasses.
Bake
Roll thin and bake in a rather slow oven.
The cookies will be quite spoiled unless mixed with great care.
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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.
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Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together7,711 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together3,331 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together8,368 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Nutmeg + lemontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Allspice + lemontop 4% of all pairsAroma overlapstrongMentioned together2,083 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour (in the method)
- Provides the structure that holds the cookie together as it bakes.
- Molasses
- Adds moisture, sweetness and a deep brown colour to the cookies.
- Butter (in the method)
- Adds fat that gives a tender, rich texture.
- Lard (in the method)
- Adds fat that keeps the cookies tender and short.
- Brown sugar (in the method)
- Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown.
The step that matters
Mixing the dough with great care. The fats must be worked evenly through the flour and spices with the hands. Uneven mixing gives pockets of fat and uneven texture, so the cookies can spread or turn out poorly.
Flavor stand-ins for the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, cream, clove, allspice, nutmeg, egg, brandy):
- Currantbetter flavor fit
- Orangebetter flavor fit
- Raisinbetter flavor fit
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, cream, clove, allspice, nutmeg, egg, brandy. 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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