Name: Splendid Cookies
Ingredients: 4 eggs; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 2 cups sugar; 1 teaspoon cloves; ½ cup almonds, chopped; 1 lemon, grated rind; ½ teaspoon baking powder; flour, as needed

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 ↓

Splendid 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.

Make the dough

Beat the eggs and sugar together until creamy.
Add the cinnamon, cloves, chopped almonds, grated lemon rind, and baking powder.
Mix in enough flour to form a dough that can be rolled out.

Shape and bake

Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until lightly golden.

Rest and serve

These cookies are best after a week.

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.

Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Cinnamon + almondtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,514 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Almond + flourtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,673 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,950 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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

Eggs: Bind the dough and add moisture and structure as they set in the oven.
Sugar: Beaten with the eggs for a creamy base, and adds sweetness and golden browning.
Flour: Provides the structure that lets the dough be rolled out and hold its cut shapes.
Baking powder: Releases gas during baking, giving the cookies lift and a lighter texture.
Almonds: Add nutty flavor and a bit of texture through the dough.
Lemon rind: Adds bright citrus aroma that balances the warm spices.

The step that matters

Bake until lightly golden. Sugar browns quickly, so overbaking can darken the cookies and dry them out, making them hard instead of tender.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cinnamon, sugar, clove, almond, flour):

Raisinfits better
Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cinnamon, sugar, clove, almond, 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.