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Dessert

Filled Cookies

Cookies made with a raisin filling baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Filled 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.

Make the filling

  1. Combine ½ cup sugar, chopped raisins, egg, sweet milk, water, and 3 ½ cups flour in a saucepan.

  2. Add baking soda and cream of tartar, then cook until thick.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut out cookies.

  2. Place a spoonful of filling on top of one cookie, then cover with another cookie.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + raisintop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Raisin + milktop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,155 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanoic acid (acides aroma).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Builds the structure of the dough and thickens the filling as it cooks.
Egg
Binds the filling and adds richness and structure to the mixture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in cream of tartar to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Cream of tartar
Provides acidity that reacts with baking soda to help the cookies rise.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and softness to the dough and filling.

The step that matters

Cooking the filling until thick. Heat thickens the flour in the filling. If it is not cooked until thick, it may stay runny, soften the cookies, and leak out of the edges during baking.

Swap the raisin

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinthe original
  3. Figfits less well
  4. Strawberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, milk, flour, cream. 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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