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Dessert

Hickory Nut Cookies

Cookies made with eggs, sugar, flour, baking powder, hickory nuts, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nuts are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,180 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Hickory Nut Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the eggs very light, separating the whites and yolks.

  2. Stir the sugar into the yolks, then fold in the beaten whites.

  3. Add the flour, baking powder, and nuts; mix quickly and thoroughly.

Shape and bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto greased and floured pans.

  2. Place half a nut on the middle of each cookie.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for twenty minutes.

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 + nutstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + nutstop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,228 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Whites beaten in add lift and an airy, light structure to the cookie dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and turn tender.
Hickory nuts
Add rich, nutty flavor and a firm bite to the cookies.

The step that matters

Mix quickly and thoroughly after adding the flour and baking powder. Once flour is combined with liquid, gluten begins to form, so overmixing can make the cookies tough. The whipped egg whites also deflate with prolonged stirring, so the batter should be combined swiftly and evenly to keep the cookies light.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, 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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