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Cheap Ginger Cookies

A simple ginger cookie made with molasses, brown sugar, water, lard, ginger, baking soda, and powdered alum.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar 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 ↓

Cheap Ginger Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. Combine molasses, brown sugar, warm water, and lard in a large bowl.

  2. Add ginger, then add the dissolved baking soda.

  3. Stir in the powdered alum and mix until soft and well combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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, moisture and a dark color to the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the cookies.
Lard
Provides fat that tenderizes the texture and helps the cookies spread.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown.
Powdered alum
Acts as a leavening agent that helps the cookies rise and set.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda before adding it. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it spreads evenly through the dough. Undissolved pockets can leave bitter spots or uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Gingerthe original
  3. Allspicefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar. 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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