Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Good 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
Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the dough
In a large bowl, cream together the lard or butter and sugar.
Beat in the egg, then mix in the sour milk.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and nutmeg.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.
Fold in the raisins.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden.
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.
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Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,377 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Sugar
- Creaming with fat adds sweetness and helps give a tender, spreadable dough.
- Lard or butter
- Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and helps the dough cream with sugar.
- Egg
- Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture.
- Sour milk
- Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cookies rise and brown.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
The step that matters
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour gradually and stirring only until combined keeps the dough from overmixing. Too much gluten development can make cookies tough.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, raisin, milk):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Capersfits less well
- Jalapenofits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, raisin, milk. 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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