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Dessert

Molasses Cookies

A sweet cookie made with sugar, molasses, shortening, sour cream, baking soda, cloves, ginger, salt, and flour.

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

Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Molasses 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. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, molasses, shortening, and sour cream.

  2. Add the baking soda, cloves, ginger, and salt, and mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

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

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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep, sweet-bitter flavor to the cookies.
Shortening
Provides fat that tenderizes the texture and carries the spices.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to lift and lighten the cookies.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough hold its shape when rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll. Adding too much flour makes the cookies dry and tough, while too little leaves the dough sticky and hard to shape. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough is workable.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, cream, 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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