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Dessert

Hermits or Fruit Cookies

Cookies made with molasses, figs, raisins, sugar, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Hermits or Fruit 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix molasses, sugar, chopped figs, eggs, grated nutmeg, cinnamon, raisins, milk, cloves, and baking soda.

  3. Gradually add the sifted flour until well combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to a thickness of ¼ inch.

  2. Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.

  3. 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Fig + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together614 recipes

    Shared aroma: cinnamyl acetate (sweet aromatic, cinnamon).

  4. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  5. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture, and a dark color to the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cut shapes together.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Figs
Add moisture, chewiness, and natural fruit sweetness.
Raisins
Add moisture, chewiness, and concentrated sweetness.

Swap the fig

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisin, milk):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Orangefits less well
  4. Applefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, egg, nutmeg, cinnamon, raisin, milk. 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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