Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger Drops

A ginger-flavored cookie made with sugar, molasses, butter, ginger, baking soda, water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Ginger 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, mix together the sugar, molasses, ground ginger, and melted butter.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in enough flour to create a thick batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a dripping pan or muffin pans.

  2. Bake until warm and golden.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, 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. 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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a moist, chewy texture to the cookies.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and boiling water to lighten the batter and help it rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness in the finished cookies.
Ground ginger
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavor of the cookies.
Flour
Gives the batter body and structure so it holds its shape when baked.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it goes into the batter, so it reacts evenly. Undissolved clumps can leave bitter, soapy pockets and uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes