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Cookies with Raisin Filling

Cookies made with a raisin filling baked until slightly brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Cookies with Raisin Filling

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.

Make the dough

  1. Beat together the sugar, sweet milk, butter, and egg until creamy.

  2. Mix in the flour and baking powder until well combined.

Make the filling

  1. Cook together the sugar, flour, boiling water, and chopped raisins until thickened.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the cookie dough very thin and cut out shapes.

  2. Place the cut dough in tins.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of filling on each cookie.

  4. Top with another cookie.

  5. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until slightly 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, crumbly texture in the cookie.
Flour
Provides structure, and thickens the raisin filling so it holds together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the dough rises and lightens.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown in the oven.
Chopped raisins
Provide the sweet, chewy filling and moisture inside the cookie.

The step that matters

Cook the raisin filling until thickened. Flour thickens only as it cooks in hot liquid. If the filling is undercooked it stays runny and can soak into the dough and make the cookies soggy during baking.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, butter, 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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