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Dessert

Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate cookies made with chocolate, sugar, butter, citron, spices, brandy, flour, and leavening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Chocolate Cookies

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Chocolate 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

  1. Melt the chocolate and mix it with the sugar and butter until smooth.

  2. Add the chopped citron, eggs, cloves, cinnamon, and brandy (or milk) to the mixture.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until well combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 10‑12 minutes or until set.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Chocolate + cinnamontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,808 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to lift and lighten the cookies.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so the baking soda can react and leaven it.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown and set as it bakes.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (chocolate, sugar, butter, egg, cinnamon, brandy, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against chocolate, sugar, butter, egg, cinnamon, brandy, 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.

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