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Dessert

Fruit Cookies

A sweet cookie made with sugar, butter, currants, raisins, spices, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Fruit Cookies

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  3. Add the currants, chopped raisins, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and baking soda. Mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is easy to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden, watching carefully to prevent burning.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the cookie texture.
Currants
Add concentrated fruit sweetness and chewy moisture to the cookies.
Raisins
Add chewy moisture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help it rise and brown.

The step that matters

Bake until golden, watching closely. Sugar and fruit brown quickly, so the cookies can go from golden to burnt in a short time. Checking them closely prevents bitter, scorched edges.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, clove):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, raisin, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, clove. 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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