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Dessert

Spice Cookies

A sweet cookie dough flavored with cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and butter, rolled in sugar and baked.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

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

Prepare the dough

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

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

  3. Add the cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, eggs, and milk; mix well.

  4. Sift in the flour and baking powder until the dough is sticky enough to roll into balls.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough balls in granulated sugar.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 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. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and, creamed with butter, helps give them a tender crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture when creamed with sugar.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking powder
Releases gas that lifts the cookies so they rise and stay light.
Milk
Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the dough soft.

The step that matters

Sifting in the flour and baking powder. Adding flour until the dough is just sticky enough to roll is important because too much flour makes the cookies dry and dense. Mixing too long also develops gluten, toughening the texture.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, egg, milk, 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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