Why it works: Lemon and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,950 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
German Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare the dough
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a bowl, mix the flour and baking powder.
In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs, lemon zest, and mace to the butter mixture and mix well.
Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and combine.
Shape and bake
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Brush the cookies with a beaten egg and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden.
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.
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Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,611 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Butter
- Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the cookies a tender, rich texture.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cookies and, creamed with butter, helps create a light structure.
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add richness and structure as the cookies set.
- Flour
- Forms the main structure of the dough once combined with the liquid ingredients.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the dough to help the cookies rise and turn lighter.
The step that matters
Gradually add the flour mixture. Adding flour slowly and mixing only until combined keeps the dough tender. Overworking flour develops gluten, which can make cookies tough.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, egg, butter, lemon, cinnamon):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cardamomfits better
- Allspicefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, butter, lemon, cinnamon. 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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