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Cracknels

Cracknels are small biscuit-like dough pieces boiled then baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Cracknels

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dough

  1. Mix flour and grated nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg yolks.

  3. Mix the beaten yolks with rose water and cold water.

  4. Combine the wet ingredients with the flour to form a stiff paste.

  5. Incorporate the butter into the paste until well mixed.

  6. Shape the dough into cracknel shapes.

Boil and dry

  1. Boil water in a kettle.

  2. Add the shaped dough to the boiling water.

  3. Boil until they float.

  4. Remove the dough from the boiling water.

  5. Place the dough in cold water.

  6. Lay the hardened dough out to dry.

Bake

  1. Bake on tin plates 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 + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the paste once mixed with liquid.
Large eggs, yolks only
Add richness and help bind the dough together.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and gives it a richer texture.
Rose water
Adds a floral aroma to the dough.

The step that matters

Boil until they float. Boiling sets the outside of the shaped dough so it holds its shape. Floating shows the pieces have puffed and cooked through, so they can then be hardened in cold water and dried before baking.

“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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