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Dessert

Walnut Cookies

A sweet cookie made with butter, raisins, walnuts, dates, sugar, eggs, cinnamon, baking soda, vanilla, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Walnut Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure. The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the eggs, raisins, walnuts, dates, cinnamon, baking soda dissolved in a little hot water, and vanilla. Mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to drop from a teaspoon.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a 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.

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

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

  2. Cinnamon + vanillatop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

  3. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Dates + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together283 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  5. Dates + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together218 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cookies and helps them brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff dough together.
Baking soda
Reacts to help the cookies rise and spread slightly while baking.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff enough to drop from a teaspoon. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and dense, while too little leaves the dough too loose to hold its shape when baked.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pecansfits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, raisin, dates, sugar, egg, cinnamon, vanilla. 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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