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Dessert

Brown Xmas Cookies

A sweet, spiced cookie made with butter, lard, syrup, flour, sugar, spices, lemon zest, eggs, baking soda, and topped with almonds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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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 ↓

Brown Xmas Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Warm the butter, lard, and syrup together.

  2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, crushed cardamom, and grated lemon.

  3. Pour the warm syrup mixture into the dry ingredients and stir well.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix in the baking soda dissolved in hot water.

  5. Add the egg mixture to the dough and mix thoroughly.

  6. Let the dough rest for at least one day for crispier cookies.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and place an almond in the center of each cookie.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,299 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + cardamomtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,114 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Cardamom + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 and richness to the cookies.
Butter and lard
Add fat for tenderness and a short, crumbly texture.
Syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture, and helps the cookies brown.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the syrup's acidity to lift and lighten the dough.

The step that matters

Let the dough rest for at least one day. Resting lets the flour fully hydrate and the spices and syrup meld, and the dough firms up so the cookies spread less and turn crisper when baked.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, syrup, flour, sugar, cinnamon, clove, cardamom):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, syrup, flour, sugar, cinnamon, clove, cardamom. 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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