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Dessert

Hermits or Fruit Cookies

A sweet cookie made with brown sugar, butter, eggs, raisins, currants, cinnamon, cloves, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Hermits or 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.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the brown sugar and butter.

  3. Add the eggs and mix well.

  4. Stir in the chopped raisins and currants.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda, cinnamon, and cloves.

  6. Dissolve the baking soda mixture in the warm water and add to the batter.

  7. Gradually add flour until the mixture is soft but not sticky.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet and sprinkle sugar on top.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay soft.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and creaming it with sugar traps air for a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sugars and moisture to help the cookies rise and brown.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness to the cookies.
Currants
Add chewy texture and tart fruitiness throughout the cookies.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour should be added gradually until the dough is soft but not sticky. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and dense, while too little makes them spread and turn out greasy.

Swap the currant

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

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

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