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Dessert

Grandma's Ginger Cookies

A ginger cookie dough made with sugar, lard, baking soda, molasses, water, eggs, ginger, cornmeal, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses 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 ↓

Grandma's 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Beat sugar, lard, baking soda, ginger, and eggs together in a large bowl until well combined.

  2. Add molasses and water, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Sift flour and cornmeal together, then gradually add to the mixture to form a light dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly and cut into shapes with a small cutter, as the cookies will spread.

  2. Lightly grease baking pans and place the cookies one inch apart.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Lard
Provides fat that gives the cookies tenderness and a short texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift the dough and help it spread.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavour and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough as it sets in the oven.

The step that matters

Rolling and cutting the dough. The dough is thin and soft, and the cookies will spread in the oven. Rolling it evenly and leaving space between cookies keeps their shapes clean and prevents them from merging as they bake.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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