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Dessert

Ginger Cookies

A sweet cookie made with sugar, butter, molasses, egg, sour milk, baking soda, ginger, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Ginger Cookies

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ginger Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the molasses, egg, sour milk, baking soda dissolved in boiling water, and ginger.

  3. Mix in enough flour to form a soft dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Shape and bake like sugar cookies.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cookies a tender, rich texture.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that keeps the cookies soft.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and richness to the cookies.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cookies rise and soften.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that leavens the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that turns the mixture into a soft, shapeable dough.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in boiling water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly with the acids in the molasses and sour milk. Uneven dissolving leaves pockets of soda that cause bitter taste and uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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