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Dessert

Raisin Drop Cookies

A sweet cookie with raisins, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

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

Raisin Drop Cookies

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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

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

  2. Add the eggs, milk, baking soda, cream of tartar, nutmeg, and cinnamon; mix well.

  3. Sift together the flour and add it to the mixture, stirring until combined.

  4. Fold in the chopped raisins.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a well‑greased baking sheet, leaving space for the cookies to spread.

  2. Bake for 10–12 minutes or 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and spread.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that makes the cookies rise.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with baking soda to leaven the dough and balance sweetness.

The step that matters

Stirring in the flour. Once the flour is added, mix only until combined. Overmixing develops too much gluten, which makes cookies tough instead of tender.

“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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