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Dessert

Cracknels

Cracknels are a type of biscuit made from flour, nutmeg, egg yolks, rose water, butter, and boiled until they float.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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

Make the dough

  1. Mix flour and grated nutmeg in a bowl.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and add to the flour mixture.

  3. Stir in rose water and enough cold water to form a stiff paste.

  4. Incorporate the butter into the paste until well combined.

Shape and boil

  1. Shape the dough into cracknel shapes.

  2. Boil in a kettle of water until they float.

  3. Remove and place in cold water to harden.

Dry and bake

  1. Lay out to dry and bake on tin plates.

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

Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once mixed with liquid.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dough together.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the dough and gives it richness.
Rose water
Adds fragrance and moistens the dough.

The step that matters

Boil until they float. Boiling gelatinises the starch on the surface of the shapes, so they set firm and hold their form during baking. Removing them too early leaves them soft and fragile, while overcooking can make them tough.

“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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