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Dessert

Boston Cookies

A sweet cookie made with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking soda, cinnamon, walnuts, raisins, and a touch of hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Boston Cookies

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 ↓

Boston Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Gradually add the sugar and mix well.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix until combined.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in hot water and add to the mixture.

  5. Sift together the flour, salt, and cinnamon, then add to the bowl.

  6. Fold in the chopped walnuts and raisins.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough one inch apart on a buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + walnuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the cookies.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown and crisp at the edges.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture as the cookies set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the mixture to help the cookies rise and spread, and aids browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
English walnut meat
Adds crunch and a toasty, nutty flavor to the cookies.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in hot water. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the dough; undissolved pockets can leave bitter, soapy spots and uneven rising.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, flour, cinnamon, meat, 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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