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Cookies with Raisin Filling

Cookies made with a raisin filling, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Cookies with Raisin Filling

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.

Prepare the filling

  1. To make the filling, combine chopped raisins, sugar, water, and flour in a saucepan.

  2. Cook until thickened, adding lemon for flavor.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and shortening.

  3. Add the egg and milk, mixing well.

  4. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, then stir in the vanilla.

Assemble and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin and spread the raisin filling between two layers.

  2. Bake the cookies in the preheated oven 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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + vanillatop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,187 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vanilla + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together782 recipes

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

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Shortening
Adds fat that makes the cookie dough tender and rich.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookie together as it bakes.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough so it reacts with baking soda to help it rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that lightens the cookies.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds richness and structure.
Raisins
Provide chewy sweetness and moisture in the filling.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes through and crisps evenly around the filling, while thick dough can stay doughy in the middle and brown unevenly before the filling heats through.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Strawberryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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