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Dessert

Crackers with Nuts

A sweet cracker made with sugar, milk, shortening, eggs, baking soda, cream of tartar, and nuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Crackers with Nuts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, sweet milk, and shortening until well combined.

  2. Add the eggs and mix until smooth.

  3. Stir in the baking soda and cream of tartar.

  4. Fold in the nuts.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.

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. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Milk + nutstop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together982 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Milk + creamtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

Sugar and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crackers brown and crisp as they bake.
Shortening
Provides fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps the crackers soft inside.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the crackers.
Baking soda
Reacts with cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the crackers rise and spread.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda, aiding lift and a tender texture.
Nuts
Add texture, crunch and a toasty flavor to the crackers.

The step that matters

Dropping the spoonfuls onto the baking sheet. Spacing and portion size control spread, since the dough softens and spreads as it heats. Uneven or crowded drops can bake unevenly or merge together, so leave room between them.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits about as well
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, milk, egg, cream. 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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