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 ↓
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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make and shape the dough
In a bowl, mix the chopped walnuts, raisins, eggs, sugar, and butter until well combined.
Gradually add the flour and baking soda, mixing until a dough forms.
Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto buttered baking sheets.
Do not roll or cut the cookies.
Bake
Bake until lightly golden.
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.
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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Walnut + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,873 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Walnut + raisintop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together647 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Raisin + sugartop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together12,481 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Butter and flour 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
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat and richness, helping the cookies brown and stay tender.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and contributes to browning and a crisp edge.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the dough to help the cookies rise and spread slightly.
- Raisins
- Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cookies.
The step that matters
Drop spoonfuls onto buttered sheets and do not roll or cut. The dough is soft and sticky, so it must be dropped rather than shaped. Handling it too much or adding extra flour would make the cookies dense and tough, while spacing them on greased sheets prevents sticking and lets them spread evenly as they bake.
Swap the walnut
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (raisin, egg, sugar, butter, flour):
- Almondfits better
- Chestnutfits better
- Pistachiofits better
- Walnutthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, egg, sugar, butter, 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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