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Dessert

Cookies and Gingerbread

A gingerbread cookie made with butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, spices, flour, baking soda, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Ladies' Benevolent Society, First Congregational Church (Fall River, Mass .). Ladies' Benevolent Society, Mass.) First Congregational Church (Fall River · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 35 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cookies and Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter to a cream.

  2. Add the sugar gradually.

  3. Add the ginger, the milk, and the soda dissolved in the milk.

  4. Add the flour.

Prepare the pans and bake

  1. Turn the baking pans upside down and wipe the bottoms very clean.

  2. Butter the pans.

  3. Spread the cake mixture very thin on the pans.

  4. Bake in a moderate oven until brown.

  5. While still hot, cut into squares with a case-knife and slip from the pan.

Make the molasses batter

  1. Put molasses and sugar in a bowl with lard, butter, eggs, soda, and vinegar.

  2. Beat this thoroughly.

  3. Add flour mixed with spices and one teaspoon of baking powder.

  4. Pour the boiling water over the mixture and stir.

Bake the drop cookies

  1. Bake in a moderate oven.

  2. Stir in one half cup cold water.

  3. Mix the sugar, butter, currants, sweet milk, eggs, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt, baking powder, and flour until soft.

  4. Drop with spoon and bake quickly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

964Calories
28 gProtein
26 gFat
154 gCarbs

Counts 11 of 12 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Grape1/2 cup (76g)62
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Ladies' Benevolent Society, First Congregational Church (Fall River, Mass .). Ladies' Benevolent Society, Mass.) First Congregational Church (Fall River. 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. See the original page.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 fat and richness, giving the cookies tenderness and a short texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they set.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and crisp in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavour and dark colour to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set its structure while baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with acid in the batter to release gas, helping it rise and brown.

The step that matters

While still hot, cut into squares with a case-knife and slip from the pan.. Sugar-rich cookies set and become brittle as they cool, so cutting and lifting them while still hot prevents sticking and cracking.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, ginger, flour, sugar, molasses, milk, cinnamon. 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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