Name: Ginger Cookies
Ingredients: 1 cup sugar; 1 cup molasses; 1 cup sour milk; 1 cup butter; 1 tablespoon ginger (not heaping); 1 tablespoon baking soda; ½ tablespoon ground cloves; ½ tablespoon ground cinnamon; 5 cups all-purpose flour

Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Ginger Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).
In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, molasses, sour milk, and butter until well combined.
Add the ginger, baking soda, ground cloves, and ground cinnamon, and mix thoroughly.
Gradually add the flour, mixing until a dough forms.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven until cookies are set and lightly browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 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: Adds moisture, deep sweetness and the dark color typical of ginger cookies.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with baking soda so the cookies rise and stay tender.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that leavens the dough.
Butter: Provides fat for richness, tenderness and flavor in the cookies.
All-purpose flour: Forms the gluten network and structure that holds the cookies together.

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits better
Gingerthe original

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