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Dessert

Frosted Creams

A sweet dough made with molasses, butter, flour, baking soda, vinegar, spices, and sugar frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Frosted Creams

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Combine black molasses and butter in a saucepan and boil the mixture together.

  2. Stir in 1 cup of flour and allow the mixture to cool.

  3. Add baking soda, vinegar, ginger, and cinnamon to the cooled mixture.

  4. Incorporate additional flour as necessary to form a dough that can be rolled out.

Bake and frost

  1. Cut the dough into squares.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  3. Boil sugar and water together until it threads for the frosting.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Black molasses
Provides the dark color, rich flavor, and moisture that give the cookies their character.
Flour
Forms the structure that lets the dough be rolled out and hold its cut shape.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and vinegar to release gas, helping the cookies rise and lighten.
Vinegar
Reacts with the baking soda to produce lift and adds a slight tang that balances the molasses.
Sugar
Dissolves in boiling water to make a syrup that sets into a sweet frosting.

The step that matters

Boil the sugar and water until it threads. Sugar syrup changes texture as its concentration rises. Stopping too early leaves a runny frosting, while boiling too long makes it hard and brittle once cooled.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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