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Dessert

Crisp Cookies

Crisp cookies are made from butter, sugar, eggs, milk, spices, baking soda, cream of tartar, flour, and optional almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Crisp 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 the butter and sugar together in a large bowl.

  2. Add the eggs, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and cream of tartar, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add enough flour to form a soft dough that can be rolled out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Brush the cookies with milk and sprinkle with sugar and chopped almonds if desired.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until light 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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 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
Creams with sugar to trap air and adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the proteins set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets the final shape.
Baking soda
Reacts with acidic ingredients to release gas that lightens the cookies.
Cream of tartar
Acts as an acid that works with baking soda to help the cookies rise.

The step that matters

Gradually add enough flour to form a soft dough that can be rolled out.. Flour is added a little at a time because too much at once makes the dough stiff and dry, while mixing it too long develops gluten and makes cookies tough.

“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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