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Dessert

Fruit Cookies or Hermits

A spiced raisin cookie made with sugar, butter, egg, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Fruit Cookies or Hermits

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter.

  2. Add egg and mix well.

  3. Stir in raisins, water, cream of tartar, and baking soda.

  4. Add cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg to taste.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake 10-12 minutes or 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 + nutmegtop 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. Clove + nutmegtop 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
Adds fat that makes the cookies tender and richly flavoured.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the dough, helping baking soda react and lightening the texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the dough to produce gas that makes the cookies rise.
Raisins
Add chewy texture and concentrated sweetness throughout the cookies.

The step that matters

Bake 10-12 minutes or until golden. Baking soda and cream of tartar react quickly once mixed, so the dough should go into the oven promptly. Over-baking dries the cookies and makes them hard, while the golden colour signals browning that adds flavour.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, raisin, egg, cream, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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