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Dessert

Ginger Fingers

A ginger-flavored cookie made with molasses, sugar, shortening, flour, spices, and boiled frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove 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 Fingers

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the molasses, sugar, shortening, and boiling water.

  3. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. Mix until combined.

  4. Roll the dough thin and cut into strips measuring 1 inch by 4 inches.

Bake and finish

  1. Place the strips on a baking sheet, leaving space between them.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until set.

  3. Remove from the oven and cool on paper.

  4. Once cool, cover each strip with boiled frosting.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the strips together as they bake.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and keeps the strips from drying out.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and help it rise.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Ginger
Contributes the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookie.

The step that matters

Bake until set. Baking only until the strips are set keeps them tender and chewy; overbaking dries the sugars and makes them hard and brittle as they cool.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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