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Dessert

Dark Cookies

A dark cookie made with molasses, ginger, lard, flour, baking soda, and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Dark Cookies

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. In a large mixing bowl, combine molasses and water.

  2. Melt the lard and add it to the mixture.

  3. Stir in baking soda and ginger until well combined.

  4. Gradually add flour until a dough forms.

  5. Add lemon to taste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

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

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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + lemontop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 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

Molasses
Provides sweetness, moisture and the dark, rich flavor of the cookies.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps the cookies soft.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, lifting the dough and darkening its color.
Flour
Builds the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Ginger
Contributes the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookies.

The step that matters

Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until firm. Molasses cookies brown quickly because of their sugar content. Overbaking dries them out and makes them hard, while cookies removed a little early firm up as they cool.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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