Name: Molasses Cookies
Ingredients: 1 cup molasses; ½ cup shortening; 1 tablespoon baking soda; 2 tablespoons warm milk; 2 cups bread flour; 1¼ teaspoons salt; ½ teaspoon ground cloves; ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg; ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Molasses Cookies

Ingredients

Directions

Heat molasses to boiling and pour over shortening.
Dissolve baking soda in warm milk and add to the mixture.
Mix in bread flour, salt, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon until well combined.
Chill the dough, then roll it out as thinly as possible.

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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, milk, bread, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon):

Clovethe original
Allspicefits about as well
Cardamomfits about as well
Gingerfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, bread, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.