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Dessert

Hermit Drop Cakes

A sweet drop cake made with brown sugar, butter, eggs, flour, spices, raisins, nuts, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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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 ↓

Hermit Drop Cakes

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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix the butter and brown sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, warm water, and baking soda; mix well.

  3. Gradually add the flour, cinnamon, raisins, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, and nuts; stir until combined.

  4. In the last cup of flour, add the baking powder and mix.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the cookies hold together and brown.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and gives the drops a caramel-like flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the drops together as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sugars and brown the drops while helping them rise.
Baking powder
Adds lift so the drops rise and become lighter in texture.

The step that matters

Adding the baking powder to the last cup of flour. Baking powder and baking soda both leaven the dough, so mixing the baking powder into only part of the flour, rather than the whole batch, can leave it unevenly distributed and cause uneven rising and texture across the drops.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, flour, cinnamon, raisin, allspice. 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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