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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

A soft gingerbread cookie made with molasses, brown sugar, sour milk, butter, lard, baking soda, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Soft Gingerbread

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the molasses, brown sugar, sour milk, butter, and lard until well combined.

  3. Add the baking soda and ginger, and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Spoon the batter onto a baking sheet, shaping it into thicker cookies.

  2. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Milk + buttertop 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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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 moisture, dark color and a rich, sweet flavor to the cookies.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda so the cookies rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender, soft crumb.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cookies soft and moist.

The step that matters

Shaping the cookies thick before baking. Dough shaped thick and baked only until a toothpick comes out clean keeps the centers soft; baking too long dries the cookies and makes them hard as the moisture evaporates.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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