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Dessert

Honey Cookies

Honey cookies made with sugar, butter, honey, boiling water, baking soda, ginger, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Honey and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,163 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Honey Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine sugar, butter, honey, and boiling water.

  2. Stir in baking soda and ground ginger.

  3. Add flour gradually until the mixture is soft.

  4. Cover the dough.

Chill, shape and bake

  1. Let the dough stand overnight or until cold.

  2. Roll out the dough to a thickness slightly thicker than ginger snaps.

  3. Cut into desired shapes, then bake.

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. Honey + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + honeytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,327 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

  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

Flour
Builds the structure that holds the soft dough together as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture, and firms up when chilled for rolling.
Honey
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay soft.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown during baking.
Baking soda
Acts as a leavening agent that helps the dough rise and spread slightly in the oven.
Ground ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines these cookies.

The step that matters

Let the dough stand overnight or until cold. The dough is soft and sticky after mixing. Chilling firms the butter so the dough can be rolled evenly and cut cleanly, and it holds its shape instead of spreading too much in the oven.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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