Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Ginger Ceeams
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Dissolve the baking soda in a little water.
Mix the sugar, lard, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, boiling water, and salt together.
Add flour until the mixture is stiff enough for a spoon to stand upright.
Rest and bake
Let the mixture stand overnight.
In the morning, cut into cookies and bake.
Finish
Once cool, cover with icing.
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.
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Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together6,380 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together30,779 recipes
Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together9,225 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,928 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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
- Flour
- Builds the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
- Lard
- Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives a short, crumbly texture.
- Molasses
- Adds moisture, sweetness, and deep color, and helps the cookies brown.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the cookies.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the dough and promotes browning during baking.
The step that matters
Adding the flour. Flour must be added until the dough is stiff enough to hold a spoon upright. Too little flour leaves the cookies thin and prone to spreading, while too much makes them dry and tough.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, molasses, cinnamon, flour):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cardamomfits about as well
- Allspicefits about as well
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, cinnamon, 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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