Name: Fruit Cookies
Ingredients: 4 cups butter; 2 teaspoons salt; 3 cups sugar; 4 teaspoons cinnamon; 1 egg; 2 cups chopped nuts; 1 ½ cups currants; 1 teaspoon baking powder; 1 ½ cups raisins, seeded and cut in pieces

Why it works: Cinnamon and raisin are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Fruit Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).
Cream the butter in a large bowl.
Add the sugar and beaten egg, mixing well.
In a separate bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
Gradually add the dry mixture to the butter mixture.
Fold in the chopped nuts, currants, and raisins.
Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a buttered baking sheet, spacing them one inch apart.
Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until lightly 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.

Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,390 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Nuts + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together490 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Currant + raisintop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,180 recipes

Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).
Cinnamon + nutstop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together487 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

Swap the currant

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

Vanillafits better
Figfits better
Coconutfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cinnamon, egg, nuts, raisin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.