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Gi-ngee Cookies Without Shoetening

Molasses and ginger cookies made with sugar, butter, currants and flour, baked as marble-sized balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar 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 ↓

Gi-ngee Cookies Without Shoetening

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix together the molasses, sugar, butter, ginger, baking soda, and currants.

  2. Gradually add flour until the dough is manageable.

Shape and bake

  1. Take small pieces of dough and roll them into marble-sized balls.

  2. Place the balls on a baking sheet.

  3. The balls will flatten and crinkle on top while baking.

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. Molasses + sugartop 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. Ginger + flourtop 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

Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown and crisp at the edges.
Butter
Provides fat for richness and tenderness, replacing the shortening in the original.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift the cookies and encourage spreading and cracking.
Ground ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookie.
Flour
Provides structure so the dough can be shaped into balls and holds its form before baking.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is manageable. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and dry, so the cookies bake up dense rather than soft. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough holds together but remains slightly soft.

Swap the currant

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

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

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