Why do animal crackers taste like that?

June 16, 2020 8:49 PM

What makes animal crackers taste distinctive?

Years ago a local ice cream shop had an animal cracker ice cream they would blend into a milkshake and it still tasted distinctively like animal crackers. What is that flavor?

My only guess, based on the Trader Joe's version I have here, is a slight lemon flavor, but that may not be true of the classic Nabisco Barnum's Animals. What is it? Thanks!

posted by rustcellar to Food & Drink (14 answers total)

combination of graham cracker flavor and a hint of vanilla? (but that's coming from the palate of a girl who drinks box wine, so ...)
posted by mccxxiii at 9:08 PM on June 16, 2020 [1 favorite]

King Arthur has a recipe. Honey? Oat flour? Maybe something in the recipe will answer your question.
posted by bz at 9:43 PM on June 16, 2020 [3 favorites]

Probably also toasted crumbs with butter - a lot of the flavor of a cookie comes from the toasty maillard reaction goodness of baking them. I know if you get cookie butter it's made from literal cookies that have been ground up.
posted by Lady Li at 10:01 PM on June 16, 2020 [2 favorites]

From the King Arthur page ... Princess Cake and Cookie Bakery Emulsion! "light, nutty taste accented with undertones of citrus and rich vanilla"

This is fascinating, can't wait to try it!
posted by mccxxiii at 10:11 PM on June 16, 2020 [5 favorites]

Yeah I always taste citrus in animal crackers. Like they’re made with orange juice or something.
posted by panama joe at 10:46 PM on June 16, 2020 [5 favorites]

The Nabisco formula is also made with corn flour. They’re also made more like a sweet cracker than a cookie in terms of dough. I would guess it’s a proprietary mix of vanilla and citrus under “natural flavors.”
posted by Crystalinne at 11:59 PM on June 16, 2020 [4 favorites]

I always thought there was lemon in animal crackers. They’re kind of tangy.
posted by iamkimiam at 12:07 AM on June 17, 2020

It's been decades, but I remember an aftertaste; not bad, but enough to make me want another one more than I would have without it, I think.
posted by jamjam at 1:12 AM on June 17, 2020

Thinking about this a little more, I seem to remember a very, very faint overtone of ammonia:

Hartshorn helps molded cookies such as Springerle to retain their intricate designs during baking. Cookies made with hartshorn can be kept for a long time without hardening. Use of hartshorn may turn some ingredients, such as sunflower seeds, green.

Ammonium carbonate is especially suited to thin, dry cookies and crackers. When heated, it releases ammonia and carbon dioxide gases, but no water. The absence of water allows cookies to cook and dry out more quickly, and thinner cookies allow the pungent ammonia to escape, rather than to remain trapped, as it would in a deeper mass.

posted by jamjam at 1:41 AM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

I don't know if this helps, but it may give you another direction to look in; I eat Maria cookies all the time, usually to quell a minor stomach issue. When my sister in law was visiting last year, she mentioned that she was having a digestive issue, so we stopped in a bodega and picked up a roll of Maria cookies.
I've eaten them for years, and although I recognized the flavor I never put much thought into where I knew the flavor from. As soon as SIL ate one, she said, "oh, animal crackers", and it clicked. Helped her stomach, as it has done with most people I've fed them to for the same reason.

Maybe look into Maria cookie recipes as well?
posted by newpotato at 2:06 AM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

I accidentally made my hamantaschen taste just like animal crackers this year! In my case it was lemon and vanilla, combined with a particularly high-starch gluten free all purpose flour blend (largely cornstarch). I think the animal cracker effect wouldn’t have been nearly as strong with a more standard flour.
posted by cabbage raccoon at 7:24 AM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

I always though it was cloves...huh.
posted by Dmenet at 9:40 AM on June 17, 2020 [1 favorite]

Agreed on lemon flavoring in conjunction with vanilla as a big part of what makes for that "animal cracker" flavor. They have toasty wheat notes, and with corn flour ahead of the dextrose and fructose in the ingredient list, I definitely think the corn flour provides some characteristic friability and contributes a flavor that's not just wheaty, even if the crackers don't read as overtly corn-y. I think the bran-y notes from the corn are why some people read them as whole wheat - graham-like - when they're actually not. So wheat + corn + lemon + vanilla - that's pretty distinctive - we don't have a lot of sweets with that profile.
posted by jocelmeow at 11:45 AM on June 17, 2020

Here is an excerpt from the foodtimeline.org entry about animal crackers:

The earliest mention of animal crackers we have in print is this recipe from 1883:

Animals or Menagerie

1 bbl flour, 40 lbs sugar, 16 lard, 12 oz soda, 8 ozs ammonia, 6 3/4 gals milk."
---Secrets of the Bakers and Confectioners' Trade, J. D. Hounihan [self-published:Staunton VA] April 1, 1883 (p. 96)
[NOTE: this is professional cooking text. It does not offer any instructions regarding the shaping of these cookies. The author offers this interesting preface note on p. 89: "The following recipes are from threee of the best workmen in the business. One of them is at New York, another at Philadelphia and the third at Cambridge, Mass. They are all employed in the best bakeries in their respective localities, and I have their sworn affidavit that they are the recipes they are now working with, and the best known to them...I am not at liberty to give the names of the parties I have the recipes from, for reasons best known to myself and the parties"]

National Biscuit Company's (now Nabisco) classic Animal Crackers were introduced to the American public in 1902. According to Nabisco sources, the first Animal Crackers were marketed as a seasonal item. The brighly-colored box (not the cookies) was promoted as a Christmas tree ornament, thus explaining the string attached to the top.

Although Animal biscuits/crackers are a very simple cookie we find no evidence they were created/promoted as health foods. 19th century cookie-type health products often contained arrowroot and Graham's flour (whole wheat). They were not generally marketed in fancy shapes.
[my emphasis.]

Arrowroot is another candidate for the source of the distinctive taste, I think.
posted by jamjam at 3:02 PM on June 17, 2020