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Dessert

Molasses Drops

A simple drop cookie made with molasses, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,623 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Molasses 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix molasses, cold water, baking soda, butter, and nutmeg.

  2. Gradually add flour until the mixture is thick enough to drop from a spoon.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned.

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. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + nutmegtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,850 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Molasses
Provides the dark color, rich flavor and moisture that make the cookies chewy.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cookies rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer flavor in the cookies.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into cookies as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour should be added slowly until the dough is thick enough to hold its shape when dropped. Too much flour at once can make the cookies dense and dry, while too little leaves them spreading thin.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits about as well
  3. Nutmegthe original
  4. Allspicefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, 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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