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Dessert

Ginger Cookies

A sweet cookie made with molasses, sugar, butter, eggs, 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

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.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the molasses, sugar, butter, and eggs until well combined.

  2. Stir in the sour milk and dissolved baking soda.

  3. Add the ginger and gradually mix in enough flour to form a dough that can be rolled.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough out and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until 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.

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. Molasses + sugartop 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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep sweet flavor to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the cookies.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure to the cookies.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cookies rise and soften.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas for lift and spread control.
Ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookies.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour should be mixed in gradually until the dough is just rollable. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and tough, since gluten and starch set the texture as it is worked.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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