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Dessert

Ginger Cookies

A sweet cookie made with butter, molasses, brown sugar, ginger, cinnamon, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Ginger Cookies

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger 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 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. Cream the butter, brown sugar, and eggs together.

  2. Add the molasses and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the cinnamon and ground ginger until thoroughly combined.

  5. Gradually mix in the flour to form a medium stiff dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut it with a round cutter.

  2. Wash the cookies with milk or water.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done, spacing them slightly apart.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter or lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, short texture.
New orleans molasses
Provides sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and deep flavor of the cookie.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and liquid to leaven the cookies and help them rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough together once it is stiff.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the creamed fat and sugar into the dough.
Milk
Adds moisture and dissolves the baking soda so it spreads through the dough.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before mixing so it reacts evenly with the molasses and acid. Lumps can leave bitter, uneven pockets and uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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