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Dessert

Drop Cookies

Drop cookies are sweet biscuits made with sugar, butter, cream, eggs, raisins, nuts, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and vanilla.

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

Drop Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

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

  3. Add the cream or milk, eggs, raisins, chopped nuts, and vanilla; mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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.

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

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

  3. Nuts + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together638 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and brown.
Baking powder
Adds lift so the cookies spread and puff as they bake.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and crisp at the edges.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dry ingredients. Once flour is added, overmixing develops gluten and can make the cookies tough. Stir only until the flour is just combined.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits better
  4. Nutsthe original

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

More drop cookies recipes

Ginger 12Fruit 9Coconut 7Cinnamon 5Oatmeal 5Anise 3 See all 14 →

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