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Dessert

Fruit Cookies

Fruit cookies are sweet biscuits made with sugar, butter, raisins, currants, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Fruit Cookies

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 ↓

Fruit 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Stir in sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

  5. Fold in raisins and currants.

  6. Gradually add flour until dough is firm enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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, giving the cookies a tender, short texture and rich flavor.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture as they are beaten in.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the dough.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tang and moisture to the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough be firm enough to roll and cut.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until dough is firm enough to roll. Adding flour too quickly or too much makes the dough stiff and tough, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape. Adding it gradually lets you stop when the dough reaches a rollable consistency.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

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