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Economy Cookies

A simple cookie made with flour, baking soda, baking powder, spices, nuts, fat, sugar, egg, and milk or water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Economy Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream the fat, sugar, and egg together.

  2. Sift the flour and baking powder together and add to the creamed mixture.

  3. Stir in the milk or water and spices.

  4. Mix all ingredients well.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface, cut into shapes, and bake.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookie together as it bakes.
Fat
Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and keeping the texture short.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cookies rise and lighten.
Baking soda
Raises the dough and promotes browning when it reacts with acidic components.

Swap the nuts

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Milletfits better
  4. Nutsthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, cinnamon, sugar, egg, milk, nutmeg, 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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