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Bread

Graham Cookies

A sweet cookie made with brown sugar, eggs, butter, nutmeg, sour milk, graham flour, raisins, figs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin 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 ↓

Graham 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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the brown sugar, beaten eggs, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the grated nutmeg and sour milk, mixing thoroughly.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the graham flour and baking soda, then fold this mixture into the wet ingredients.

  4. Gently fold in the raisins and chopped figs.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto buttered baking tins.

  2. Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

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 + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Nutmeg + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

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

  5. Raisin + figtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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 and richness as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, helping the cookies rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor and helps the cookies brown.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and contributes to browning and a soft texture.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture to the dough.
Graham flour
Provides the main structure and a coarse, nutty texture in the cookies.

The step that matters

Folding in the raisins and figs. Fruit is heavy and can sink or clump if overmixed or dropped in unevenly. Folding gently keeps the dough aerated so the cookies rise and bake evenly.

Swap the fig

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figthe original
  3. Lemonfits less well
  4. Coconutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, nutmeg, milk, flour, 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.

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