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Dessert

Fruit Cookies

Cookies containing raisins and cinnamon baked at 350°F.

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

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. 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.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the baking soda, cream of tartar, raisins, cinnamon, and salt.

  4. Gradually add flour until the mixture thickens.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto a baking sheet and bake 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.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, tenderizing the cookie texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Cream of tartar
Adds acidity that works with baking soda to help leavening and stabilize texture.
Flour
Provides structure and thickens the dough so the spoonfuls hold their shape.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the mixture thickens. Adding too much flour at once or too little makes the dough either stiff and dry or loose and spreading. Adding it gradually lets you stop when the dough holds its shape, which controls cookie texture and spread.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Jalapenofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, butter, milk, cream, raisin, 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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