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Dessert

Fruit Cookies

Fruit cookies made with sugar, butter, buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, lemon extract, hickory nuts, raisins, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 the dough

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

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

  3. Add the buttermilk or sour cream, eggs, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and lemon extract; mix well.

  4. Stir in the hickory nuts and raisins.

  5. Gradually add flour until the mixture is thick enough to drop from a spoon.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the 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 + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk or sour cream to lift and lighten the cookies.
Buttermilk or sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity that activates the baking soda and keeps cookies tender.
Flour
Provides structure, thickening the dough so it holds its shape when dropped.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and, creamed with butter, helps give a softer crumb and browning.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour amount controls spread and texture. Adding it slowly lets you stop once the dough is thick enough to drop from a spoon, since too much flour makes dense, dry cookies and too little makes them spread thin.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, buttermilk, egg, cinnamon, lemon, meat. 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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