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Marathon Cookies

I made these cookies for Wayne to eat when he finished the San Francisco Marathon. The batter is made with pureed white beans, lots of oats, and whole wheat flour. The resulting cookies are sesame coated and flavored with aniseed, lemon zest, olive oil and chopped dates. They are beautifully tender, licorice-scented, with a bit of crunch from the sesame seed coating.

By 101cookbooks · From Open Recipes · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Sesame and dates work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and 9 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

The recipe

Makes about 1 1/2 dozen cookies. I'm not 100% sure about the yield here because I tested a variety o
Prep10 min
Cook25 min

Ingredients

Contains: egg, wheat, sesame (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Heat the oven to 350°F (177°C) and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

  2. Crush the aniseed in a mortar and pestle or spice grinder until finely ground.

  3. Blend the rinsed and drained beans, olive oil, sugar, egg, vanilla extract and lemon zest in a food processor or blender until completely smooth.

  4. In a large bowl, whisk the rolled oats, whole wheat pastry flour, ground aniseed, baking powder, baking soda and fine sea salt together.

  5. Pour the bean mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined, then fold in the chopped dates.

  6. Scoop rounded tablespoons of dough onto the sheets, leaving space between them, flatten slightly and sprinkle sesame seeds over the tops.

  7. Bake one sheet at a time for 12 to 13 minutes, until the edges are golden and the centers look set.

  8. Let the cookies cool on the sheets for 5 minutes, then move them to a rack to finish cooling.

By 101cookbooks. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sesame + datestop 23% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Beans + sesametop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together293 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Oats + wheattop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together473 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Wheat + olivetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together937 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Beans + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

Flavor stand-ins for the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oats, wheat, flour, beans, olive, sugar, egg):

  1. Vanillabetter flavor fit
  2. Blueberrybetter flavor fit
  3. Pumpkinbetter flavor fit
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oats, wheat, flour, beans, olive, sugar, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).