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Dessert

Best Ginger Drops

A sweet ginger drop cookie made with sugar, molasses, butter, flour, water, eggs, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Best Ginger Drops

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add the sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves, and blend well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the flour until combined.

  5. Beat the eggs until creamy and fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into gem tins or a loaf pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the drops and sets as the batter bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the batter bind and set.
Butter
Adds fat that gives a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and browning for a dark color.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the crust brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before adding it. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and evenly distributed so it reacts evenly with the acidic molasses. Unevenly mixed pockets can leave bitter, soapy spots and uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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