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Dessert

New Year's Cookies

A sweet cookie dough flavored with nutmeg and caraway, baked until light brown.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

New Year's Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, grated nutmeg, and caraway seeds.

Prepare the liquid

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Mix the strained mixture with the cider.

Form and bake

  1. Stir the milk mixture into the cookie batter.

  2. Add flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll out.

  3. Cut the dough into shapes.

  4. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until light brown.

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. Nutmeg + carawaytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together200 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and gives the cookies richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough, softens the texture, and helps the cookies brown in the oven.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture as the cookies set.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the stiff dough hold its shape when rolled and cut.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cider to release gas, helping the cookies rise and brown.
Cider
Supplies acidity that activates the baking soda and adds a mild fruity flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Add flour only until the dough is stiff enough to roll. Extra mixing or flour develops gluten and dries the dough, making the cookies tough rather than tender.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, nutmeg, flour, milk, cider. 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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