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Dessert

Spice Cookies

Cookies made with molasses, sugar, butter, lard, milk, spices, flour, baking soda, salt, and clove.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Spice Cookies

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 ↓

Spice Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Heat molasses to boiling point.

  2. Add sugar, butter, lard, and milk to the molasses.

  3. Mix and sift the dry ingredients, then add to the wet mixture.

  4. Chill the dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out on a lightly floured board to ¼ inch thickness.

  2. Shape with a round cutter dipped in flour.

  3. Bake on a buttered sheet at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  5. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides dark color, rich flavor, and moisture, and adds sweetness and depth.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor and helps the cookies brown.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cookies tender and helps give a soft texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift the dough and help it spread and rise.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown during baking.

The step that matters

Chill the dough. Cold dough holds its shape when rolled and cut, and chilling firms the fat so the cookies spread less in the oven, keeping their edges crisp and their shape clean.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cardamomfits about as well
  2. Clovethe original
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerfits less well

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