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Dessert

Spiced Cookies

Cookies flavored with spices, raisins, and walnuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced Cookies

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 together the butter and lard.

  2. Add the brown sugar and white sugar, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the sour milk and egg until combined.

  4. Mix in the baking soda, flour, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon extract.

  5. Fold in the raisins and chopped walnuts.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the cookies brown and carry flavour.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cookies soft and tender.
Brown sugar
Adds moisture and molasses flavour, and helps the cookies brown.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cookies rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that leavens the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cookies as they bake.

The step that matters

Mix in the baking soda, flour, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, and lemon extract.. Baking soda needs an acid, such as the sour milk, to release gas and lift the dough. Once combined, the batter should be mixed only until blended, because overmixing flour develops gluten and makes the cookies tough.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, milk, egg, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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