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Dessert

Hermits Cookies

A sweet cookie made with sugar, butter, raisins, eggs, baking soda, sweet milk, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Hermits 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 the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

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

  3. Add the chopped raisins and mix well.

  4. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in the sweet milk and add it to the mixture.

  6. Stir in the grated nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon.

  7. Gradually add flour until the dough is thick enough to cut into cookies.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

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

  5. Raisin + nutmegtop 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 the sugar to give the cookies richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the milk to help the cookies rise and spread slightly.
Flour
Provides the structure that makes the dough thick enough to cut.
Chopped raisins
Add chewy moisture and sweetness throughout the cookies.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is thick enough to cut into cookies.. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and tough, while too little leaves a dough that is too soft to roll and cut. Adding flour gradually lets you judge the texture before the dough sets.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinthe original
  4. Lemonfits about as well

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