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Dessert

Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate cookies made with sugar, butter, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, chocolate, cloves, nutmeg, flour, and topped with sugar.

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

Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Chocolate Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

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

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

  3. Add the eggs, sour milk, baking soda, cinnamon, chocolate, cloves, and grated nutmeg. Mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough.

  2. Cut into desired shapes.

  3. Sprinkle sugar on top before baking.

  4. Place on a baking sheet. 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.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Creams with sugar to add fat, tenderness and a rich texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Chocolate
Provides the chocolate flavor and color that define the cookies.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll. Adding flour in small amounts lets you control dough stiffness. Too much flour makes cookies dry and tough, while too little makes the dough sticky and hard to roll and cut cleanly.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, butter, milk, cinnamon, chocolate, 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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