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Dessert

Filled Cookies

Cookies filled with a raisin mixture, baked until brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Filled Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine shortening, sugar, egg, and sweet milk with dissolved baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Sift flour with cream of tartar, add vanilla, and mix well.

  3. Roll out the dough thin and cut with a cookie cutter.

Make the filling

  1. Cook chopped raisins with water, flour, and lemon juice in a saucepan until thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place a teaspoon of the filling on one cookie and cover with another.

  2. Bake until 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vanilla + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Shortening
Adds fat that keeps the cookie dough tender and rich.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough and filling together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to lift the cookies.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda so the cookies rise.
Raisins
Supply sweetness and moist body to the filling.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure.

The step that matters

Cook the raisin filling until thick. The filling must be cooked long enough to thicken fully, because flour sets only when heated. A thin filling will soak into the dough and run out during baking.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream, vanilla, raisin. 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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