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Geeman Christmas Cookies

Cookies made with syrup, lard, sugar, spices, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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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 ↓

Geeman Christmas Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Warm the syrup, lard, and sugar together slightly in a large pot.

  2. Add the cloves, allspice, coarse sea salt, ginger, cinnamon, eggs, grated nutmeg, sour milk, and dissolved baking soda. Mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is very stiff.

  4. Mix the dough at night.

Bake

  1. Bake the cookies the next morning.

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 + 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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Syrup
Provides sweetness and moisture, and helps the dough bind and brown.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture.
Eggs
Add structure and binding to the dough.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to help the cookies rise and lighten.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough, set stiff to shape the cookies.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is very stiff. Adding flour gradually lets you judge the dough's texture as you go. Too much flour at once can make the cookies dry and dense, while too little leaves the dough too soft to hold its shape.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (syrup, sugar, clove, allspice, cinnamon, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Marjoramfits less well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against syrup, sugar, clove, allspice, cinnamon, egg, nutmeg. 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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