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Baker's Ginger Cookies

A cookie dough made with molasses, sugar, ginger, baking soda, and flour, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Baker's 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. Scald the molasses and stir in the baking soda until it foams.

  2. Pour the molasses-baking soda mixture over the sugar.

  3. Add the salt, egg, ginger, and vinegar, and beat together.

  4. Add enough flour to make a soft dough that can be rolled out.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven until lightly browned.

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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture, and a dark color to the cookies.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and vinegar to make the dough rise and lighten.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown during baking.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure and moisture.
Ginger
Provides the spiced aroma that defines the cookie.
Vinegar
Acidity reacts with the baking soda to aid rising and softness.

The step that matters

Foaming the baking soda into the molasses. Baking soda must be stirred into the hot molasses until it foams, so the acid-base reaction releases gas before the dough is mixed. Adding it cold or unevenly can leave the cookies dense or patchy.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, egg, vinegar, 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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