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Dessert

Ginger Cookies

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Ginger Cookies

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Cookies

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  3. Stir in the molasses and sour milk.

  4. Add the ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and egg; mix well.

  5. Gradually add the flour and baking soda, mixing until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Spoon the batter into cups.

  2. Bake until golden and serve hot with tea.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries the spice flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown.
Molasses
Adds dark colour, moisture and a deep, sticky sweetness.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the batter rises.
Egg
Binds the batter and gives it structure as it sets.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to leaven the batter.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour and baking soda, mixing until combined. Baking soda needs an acid to react with, and it works best when mixed evenly through the batter. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which can make the cookies tough.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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