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Dessert

Chkistmas Cookies

Cookies made from eggs, sugar, hartshorn, flour, and anis seed, baked slowly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Chkistmas Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Stir together the eggs and sugar for one hour.

  2. Add the pulverized hartshorn and enough flour to make a stiff dough.

Shape and rest

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

  2. Keep the cookies in a warm room overnight.

Bake

  1. Sprinkle the pans with anis seed before placing the cookies in.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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
Provide structure and richness, setting the dough as it bakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and stay tender.
Pulverized hartshorn
Acts as a leavening agent, releasing gas when heated so the cookies rise and lighten.
Flour
Builds the main structure that holds the cookies in shape.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven. Hartshorn releases its leavening gas gradually when heated. A slow oven lets the cookies rise evenly and set without browning too quickly on the outside.

“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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