Skip to main content
Dessert

Anise Seed Cookies

Cookies made with eggs, sugar, anise seed, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Anise and flour work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 270 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Anise Seed 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 batter

  1. Combine sugar and eggs in a saucepan and heat until lukewarm.

  2. Remove from heat and beat until cold.

  3. Add anise seed and enough flour to make a thick batter that can drop from a spoon.

Rest and bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto baking sheets and let stand overnight or all day.

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

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. Anise + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together270 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + anisetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together328 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Provide structure and lift, helping the batter hold its shape as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies turn golden in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the batter so the spoonfuls keep their shape instead of spreading.
Anise seed
Adds its distinctive licorice-like aroma to the cookies.

The step that matters

Getting the batter thick enough. Flour must be added until the batter is thick enough to drop from a spoon. A thinner batter spreads on the baking sheet and loses the cookie shape, while a stiff batter bakes dry and dense.

Swap the anise

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Anisethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour. 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.

You might also like

White CakeWhite Cake431 recipesPound CakePound Cake373 recipesOrange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesSpice CakeSpice Cake344 recipes