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Dessert

Jennie Lind Cookies

Cookies made with bread crumbs, flour, molasses, lard, and spices.

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

Jennie Lind 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.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the bread crumbs, flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. In another bowl, beat the eggs and then add the molasses and lard.

  3. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set in the oven.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together.
Bread crumbs
Add bulk and a tender texture to the dough.
New orleans molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and deep color that helps browning.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, moist crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the cookies rise and spread.

The step that matters

Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.. Spacing and portion size matter because the dough spreads and rises as it bakes. Spoonfuls that are too large or too close together can merge and bake unevenly.

Swap the clove

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

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

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