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Dessert

Baltimore Cookies

Cookies made with beef suet, brown sugar, molasses, ginger, flour, orange peel, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Baltimore Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Heat the molasses and beef suet until well mixed.

  2. Add the brown sugar, ginger, flour, chopped orange peel, and salt.

Bake

  1. Drop the mixture by teaspoonfuls onto a buttered baking pan.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) until done.

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 + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that gives the cookies a rich, tender texture and moistness.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture, and helps the cookies stay soft.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and promotes browning during baking.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.

The step that matters

Bake in a slow oven until done. A low, steady oven heats the cookies gently so they set and dry without scorching the sugars. Baking too hot can burn the molasses and sugar before the centers are cooked through.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Orangethe original
  4. Vanillafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sugar, molasses, ginger, 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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