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Dessert

Ginger Drops

A sweet drop cookie made with sugar, molasses, butter, spices, flour, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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.

Make the batter

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

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

  3. Add the cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and baking soda dissolved in boiling water.

  4. Gradually stir in the flour until well combined.

  5. Fold in the well-beaten eggs just before baking.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into gem tins or a baking dish.

  2. Bake 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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, robust flavor.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to make the batter rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Fold in the eggs just before baking. Baking soda starts reacting as soon as it meets the acidic molasses and hot water, so the batter should go into the oven quickly. If it sits too long, much of the rising power is lost and the drops bake up denser.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, butter, cinnamon, clove, flour, egg. 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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