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Dessert

Peanut Fruit Cookies

Cookies made with butter, brown sugar, eggs, spices, raisins, and peanuts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Peanut Fruit 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.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.

  4. Fold in the chopped raisins and peanuts.

  5. Chill the dough until thoroughly cold.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden, about 10-12 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

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

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

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 trap air and add richness and tenderness to the cookie.
Light brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and caramel flavor, and helps the cookies brown.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture as the cookies set.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the oven so the cookies rise and become lighter.
Chopped peanuts
Add crunch and a roasted, nutty flavor to the cookies.

The step that matters

Chill the dough until thoroughly cold. Cold dough holds its shape, so rolled cut-outs spread less and keep crisp edges in the oven. Warm dough is soft and sticky, making it hard to roll thin and cut cleanly.

Swap the peanut

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, 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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