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 ↓
Pepper-nuts
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
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make and bake
In a bowl, mix together the light brown sugar, flour, eggs, citron, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, lemon rind, and lemon juice until well combined.
Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto buttered baking sheets, spacing them apart.
Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.
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.
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Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together14,189 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
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Cinnamon + lemontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,950 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,150 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked 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
- Eggs
- Bind the dough and add structure and moisture to the cookies.
- Flour
- Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Light brown sugar
- Adds sweetness, moisture and caramel notes, and helps the cookies brown.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with acidic ingredients to help the cookies rise and spread.
- Citron
- Adds chewy texture and candied fruit flavor throughout the cookies.
The step that matters
Bake until golden brown. Baking only until golden keeps the cookies from drying out or becoming too hard. Because the dough is spooned, spacing the drops apart lets them spread evenly while they set in the oven.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, flour, egg, cinnamon, clove):
- Raisinfits better
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, flour, egg, cinnamon, clove. 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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