Skip to main content
Dessert

Fruit Cookies

Fruit cookies are sweet baked treats made with sugar, butter, eggs, baking soda, buttermilk, spices, raisins or currants, and citron.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Fruit Cookies

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 ↓

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

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

  2. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

  5. Fold in the chopped raisins or currants and citron.

Bake

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

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Nutmeg + raisintop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creamed with sugar, it traps air and gives the cookies a tender texture and rich flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and binding, helping the dough hold its shape while baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts and lightens the cookies.
Buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness to the dough.
Sugar
Creams with butter for structure and sweetness, and promotes browning during baking.
Raisins or currants
Add chewy texture and concentrated fruit sweetness throughout the cookies.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the buttermilk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release carbon dioxide. Dissolving it fully in the buttermilk before adding it spreads the reaction evenly, so the cookies rise uniformly instead of having pockets of soda or a bitter taste.

Swap the clove

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

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

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

More fruit cookies recipes

Chocolate 5Cocoa 4 See all 68 →

You might also like

Cinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipesCinnamon CakeCinnamon Cake42 recipesButtermilk PieButtermilk Pie12 recipes