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Dessert

Nut Drops

A sweet baked treat made with butter, sugar, water, egg, flour, nuts, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Nut Drops

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until well combined.

  2. Add the water and stir until mixed, then add the beaten egg.

  3. Sift the flour and add it to the mixture, stirring until smooth.

  4. Stir in the chopped nuts and baking powder until well combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered baking sheets.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to give the drops a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Creamed with the butter and adds sweetness and browning.
Egg
Binds the dough together and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the drops together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the dough, helping the drops rise and lighten as they bake.
Nuts
Add crunch and a toasted, nutty flavour to the baked drops.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking at 400°F sets the drops quickly. Pulling them too early leaves the centres doughy, while overbaking dries them out and makes them hard.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Macadamia nutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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

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