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Dessert

Raisin Cookies

A sweet cookie dough with raisins baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Raisin Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cream together sugar and butter in a bowl.

  3. Add beaten eggs and mix well.

  4. Dissolve baking soda and cream of tartar in sweet milk, then add to mixture.

  5. Incorporate flavoring.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll dough thinly and cut with cookie cutter.

  2. Place on baking pan and press one large raisin into center of each cookie.

  3. Bake 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.

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

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

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

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

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Milk + raisintop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that gives the cookies richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar and milk to leaven the cookies.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the mixture so it reacts with baking soda to help the cookies rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Dissolve baking soda and cream of tartar in sweet milk, then add to mixture.. Baking soda and cream of tartar must be fully dissolved so the acid and base react evenly throughout the dough, producing consistent rise and avoiding bitter or soapy patches.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Strawberryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, cream, 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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