Skip to main content
Dessert

Honey Cookies

Honey Cookies are sweet baked treats made with almonds, chocolate, honey, sugar, eggs, brandy, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Honey 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.

Prepare

  1. Chop the almonds and chocolate finely.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the honey and sugar until well combined.

  2. Add the eggs and brandy, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the cloves, allspice, cinnamon, and baking powder.

  4. Gradually add flour until the mixture is stiff.

  5. Shape the dough into cookies and place them on a baking sheet.

Bake

  1. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Almond + chocolatetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,733 recipes

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

  3. Almond + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together512 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Almond + clovetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,605 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Almond + honeytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Almonds
Add crunch and body, giving the cookies a nutty texture.
Chocolate
Adds richness and melts into the dough, adding sweetness and fat.
Honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Provides structure, stiffening the dough so it holds its shape.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the cookies rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the mixture is stiff. Flour sets the structure, but adding too much makes the cookies dry and dense. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough holds its shape.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (almond, chocolate, honey, sugar, egg, brandy, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against almond, chocolate, honey, sugar, egg, brandy, allspice. 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.

You might also like

Chocolate CreamChocolate Cream171 recipesChocolate CookiesChocolate Cookies76 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes