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Dessert

Hermit Cookies

A sweet cookie made with white and brown sugar, butter, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and flour.

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

Hermit Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

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

  3. Add the eggs and sour milk, mixing well.

  4. Stir in the baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.

  5. Gradually add flour until a soft batter forms.

Bake

  1. Roll the dough and place on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that gives the cookies tenderness and a rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the sour milk to lift and lighten the cookies.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tang.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and caramel flavor, and helps browning.
White sugar
Adds sweetness and helps create a crisp edge through creaming with the butter.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Adding flour gradually until the batter is soft keeps the dough from becoming tough. Too much flour dries the cookies and makes them dense, since gluten develops with overmixing.

“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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