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Pepper Nuts

A sweet cookie made with eggs, sugar, citron, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pepper Nuts

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and sugar together.

  3. Add the chopped citron, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough into small cookies the size of a quarter.

  2. Place the cookies on a baking sheet and bake 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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add moisture and structure to the cookies.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Flour
Provides the structure that makes the dough firm enough to roll.
Citron
Adds chopped candied fruit flavor and a little moisture to the dough.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the cookies.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll. Flour absorbs liquid from the eggs and sugar and builds structure. Adding too much at once or too little makes the dough either stiff and dry or too sticky to shape, so add it slowly and stop once the dough holds its shape.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits about as well
  3. Clovethe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour. 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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