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Dessert

Tina's Gingei* Cookies

A sweet cookie made with brown sugar, molasses, butter, lard, ginger, baking soda, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Tina's Gingei* Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine brown sugar, molasses, butter, and lard in a saucepan.

  2. Boil the mixture for about 10 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and let cool.

  4. Stir in baking soda.

  5. Add eggs and enough flour to form a stiff dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden.

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. 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown.
New orleans molasses
Adds deep flavor, moisture, and dark color to the dough.
Butter and lard
Provide fat that gives the cookies tenderness and a crisp bite.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift and lighten the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as the cookies set.

The step that matters

Let the boiled mixture cool before adding baking soda and eggs. Baking soda reacts quickly with acid and heat, so adding it to a hot mixture can cause it to foam up and lose lift. Cooling first lets the reaction work evenly and keeps eggs from scrambling in heat.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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