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Dessert

Lemon Drops

A small, lemon-flavored cookie made with molasses, shortening, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓

Lemon 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 dough

  1. Grate the yellow part of the lemon into a mixing bowl.

  2. Add the sugar and salt, then beat together until well combined.

  3. Mix in the molasses, shortening, and milk.

  4. Stir in the baking soda and flour until just combined.

Bake

  1. Drop rounded teaspoons of dough into buttered tins.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until golden.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Eggs (in the method)
Not in this recipe; omitted.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the dough as the cookies bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and milk acid to lift and lighten the drops.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that promotes browning.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and gives a soft texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown at the edges as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda and flour until just combined. Baking soda needs acid from the sour milk or molasses to react and lift the drops. Overmixing after the flour goes in develops gluten, which can make them tough and dense.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

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