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Dessert

Fruit Cookies

A sweet cookie made with brown sugar, shortening, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, raisins, walnuts, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Fruit Cookies

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Fruit Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and shortening.

  3. Beat in the eggs and sour milk until well combined.

  4. Stir in the baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves.

  5. Fold in the chopped raisins and walnuts.

  6. Add flour gradually until the mixture is soft but not sticky.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  5. Clove + walnuttop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay soft.
Shortening
Provides fat that tenderizes the dough and gives a soft, rich texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cookies rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the cookies.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and pockets of sweetness throughout the cookies.

The step that matters

Add flour gradually until the mixture is soft but not sticky. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and dense, while too little leaves the dough too loose to hold its shape when dropped onto the sheet.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutthe original
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, cinnamon, clove, raisin. 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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