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Dessert

Chocolate Spice Cookies

A cookie made with sugar, cinnamon, butter, cocoa, flour, baking powder, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Spice Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar, cinnamon, and butter.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg whites and mix well.

  3. Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking powder into the mixture to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and cut into squares.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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.

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 + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + cocoatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together74 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl cinnamate (strawberry).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown during baking.
Butter
Fat that creates a tender texture and rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together.
Cocoa
Gives the cookies chocolate flavor and a deep color.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough so the cookies rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking powder into the mixture to form a soft dough.. Mixing flour into the batter too vigorously develops gluten, which can make cookies tough. Stir just until the dough comes together for a tender result.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Cocoathe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, cinnamon, butter, flour, 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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