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Dessert

Ginger Creams

A ginger cookie made with molasses, whole wheat and graham flour, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and wheat work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 255 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Ginger Creams

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Put the Crisco in a warm place and cream it with molasses.

  2. Add the ginger and salt.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the hot water and stir it in.

  4. Mix all ingredients together well.

Bake

  1. Drop by tablespoonfuls onto greased baking sheets.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F) for 20 minutes.

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 + wheattop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together255 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 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. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the dough.
Crisco
Provides fat that tenderizes the cookies and carries flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to leaven and lighten the cookies.
Whole wheat flour
Supplies the structure that sets the cookies as they bake.
Graham flour
Adds structure and a coarser, nutty texture to the dough.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the hot water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the dough so it reacts with the molasses's acid and leavens the cookies uniformly. Clumps can leave bitter spots or uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, wheat, 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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