Why it works: Nutmeg and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 200 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓
Drop Cookies
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).
Make the batter
In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and shortening.
Beat the eggs until very light and add to the mixture.
Stir in the milk, flour, baking powder, nutmeg, and caraway seeds until well combined.
Bake
Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto buttered baking sheets.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden.
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.
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Nutmeg + carawaytop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together200 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,435 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
- All-purpose flour
- Provides the main structure once its starch sets in the oven.
- Shortening
- Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
- Granulated sugar
- Creams with the fat for lightness and adds sweetness and browning.
- Eggs
- Add structure and richness, and help bind the batter.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and lighten.
- Milk
- Adds moisture that hydrates the flour and loosens the batter.
The step that matters
Creaming the sugar and shortening. Beating sugar into fat traps air bubbles that expand in the oven and lighten the cookies. Under-creaming leaves them dense and flat.
Swap the caraway
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, milk, butter, egg, nutmeg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Carawaythe original
- Allspicefits about as well
- Clovefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, milk, butter, egg, nutmeg. 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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