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Dessert

English Cookies

A sweet cookie made with eggs, flour, sugar, grape juice, butter, spices, raisins, and pecans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

English Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs or yolks very light.

  2. In a bowl, mix flour and baking powder.

  3. Add sugar, grape juice, butter, cinnamon, and cloves to the mixture.

  4. Stir in chopped raisins and pecans.

  5. Mix all ingredients well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into gem rings and bake.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Grape + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cookie as the batter sets.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cookies rise and turn light.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and contributes to browning at the cookie edges.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spices' flavor.
Grape juice
Adds moisture and fruity sweetness to the batter.

Swap the grape

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Quincefits better
  4. Grapethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, clove, raisin. 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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