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Dessert

Coasting Cookies

A spiced molasses cookie made with butter, molasses, ginger, coriander, caraway, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Coasting Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Soften the butter.

Make the dough

  1. Stir in the molasses, ginger, coriander, caraway seeds, and enough flour to form a dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin, cut into shapes, and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until crisp.

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. Coriander + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Coriander + carawaytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  3. Caraway + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Caraway + gingertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and carries flavor through the dough.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep flavor, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in molasses to release gas, helping the cookies rise and spread.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Coriander seed
Contributes a warm, citrusy aroma to the cookies.

The step that matters

Roll the dough thin. Thin dough heats through quickly and dries out enough to turn crisp. Thick dough stays soft in the centre, so the cookies will not become crisp as the recipe intends.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, molasses, caraway, ginger, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, caraway, ginger, flour. 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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