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Dessert

Molasses Cookies

Cookies made with molasses, butter, lard, sugar, eggs, sour milk, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Molasses 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 ↓

Molasses Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 400°F (200°C).

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

  3. Add the molasses, eggs, and sour milk or cream, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the preheated 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.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 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

Molasses
Provides dark color, moisture, and the characteristic deep, sweet flavor.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the cookies.
Butter and lard
Provide fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Sour milk or cream
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to help the cookies rise and spread.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown during baking.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding dry ingredients slowly and stirring only until combined keeps the dough evenly mixed and prevents overworking, which would toughen the cookies.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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