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Dessert

Spice Cookies

A sweet cookie made with brown sugar, butter, almonds, citron, spices, eggs, chocolate, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Spice Cookies

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 ↓

Spice 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 the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix brown sugar and butter until creamy.

  2. Add chopped almonds, cinnamon, citron, cloves, eggs, allspice, melted chocolate, and baking powder.

  3. Stir in enough flour to form a very stiff dough.

Bake

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  3. Bake for 10-12 minutes or 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown.
Baking powder
Releases gas that helps the cookies rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stir in enough flour to form a very stiff dough. A stiff dough holds its shape when dropped onto the sheet. Too little flour leaves the cookies flat and spreading, while the dough must stay firm enough to hold spoonfuls.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, almond, cinnamon, egg, allspice, chocolate. 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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