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Dessert

Ginger Cookies No. 2

A ginger cookie dough made with molasses, sugar, lard, sour milk, baking soda, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger Cookies No. 2

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.

Make the dough

  1. Heat the molasses, lard, and sugar in a saucepan until combined.

  2. Allow the mixture to cool slightly, then stir in the sour milk.

  3. Gradually add flour until a dough forms.

  4. Cover and let the dough sit overnight.

Shape and bake

  1. The next morning, roll out the dough and cut into shapes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until 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.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep brown color to the cookies.
Lard
Provides fat that keeps the cookies tender and short.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cookies rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Flour
Builds the structure that holds the dough together and sets during baking.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until a dough forms. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and the cookies dry and tough. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough holds together, keeping it workable for rolling.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, sugar, milk, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, milk, 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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