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Dessert

Ginger Balls

A sweet, ginger-flavored baked treat made with butter, lard, molasses, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses 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 Balls

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 batter

  1. Cream together the butter and lard in a mixing bowl.

  2. Gradually beat in the brown sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the molasses and lukewarm water.

  5. Alternately add the molasses mixture and the flour, mixing until smooth.

  6. Sift together the ginger, baking soda, and salt.

  7. Add the sifted mixture to the batter and mix until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into well-buttered round muffin pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 25 minutes.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 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 and lard
Provide fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds dark colour, moisture and the characteristic sweet, slightly bitter flavour.
All-purpose flour
Forms the gluten-based structure that holds the cooked balls together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Mix the flour and molasses mixture until just combined. Once flour is hydrated, gluten develops with vigorous mixing, which can make the balls tough. Stopping as soon as the batter is combined keeps the crumb tender.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, molasses, 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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