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Dessert

Soft Molasses Cookies

Soft molasses cookies are sweet biscuits made with brown sugar, lard, molasses, flour, ginger, and baking soda.

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 ↓

Soft Molasses Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the brown sugar and lard.

  2. Add the eggs and molasses, and beat well.

  3. Sift together the flour, baking soda, ginger, and salt, then add to the mixture.

  4. Gradually add the boiling water and beat well.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto greased baking sheets.

  2. 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. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, 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. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Bread flour
Forms the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and a dark color to the dough.
Lard
Provides fat that tenderizes the texture and carries flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lift the cookies and help them spread and brown.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.

The step that matters

Gradually add the boiling water and beat well. Adding the water slowly and beating it in lets the dough absorb the liquid evenly and keeps it smooth. Adding it all at once can make the batter uneven and too thin to hold its shape.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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