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Dessert

Ice Box Cookies

Cookies made from a dough chilled overnight and baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and almond match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,514 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Ice Box Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugars together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, cinnamon, and baking soda mixed with the flour.

  3. Knead the dough well and shape it into a large roll or loaf.

  4. Wrap the dough and refrigerate overnight.

Slice and bake

  1. In the morning, slice the dough thinly.

  2. Place sliced almonds on top of each cookie in a simple design before baking.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) for 5 minutes.

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 + almondtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + almondtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,245 recipes

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

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps create a tender, crumbly texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts to lighten the dough and help the cookies rise and brown.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deeper flavor with some browning.

The step that matters

Chilling the dough overnight. The dough must be firm enough to slice thinly. Chilling solidifies the butter so the cookies hold their shape and do not spread in the oven.

“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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