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Dessert

Clove Cookies

Cookies flavored with cloves, ginger, molasses, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove 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 ↓

Clove Cookies

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix baking soda, salt, ginger, and cloves.

  2. In another bowl, combine molasses, vinegar, cold water, and melted drippings.

  3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture.

  4. Stir in flour until a soft dough forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to ¼ inch thick and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + molassestop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Clove + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,671 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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

Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic vinegar and molasses to help the cookies rise and spread.
Melted drippings
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Flour
Gives the dough structure so it holds its shape when rolled and cut.
Ground cloves
Adds the warm, aromatic spice flavor that defines the cookies.

The step that matters

Roll the dough to ¼ inch thick. Even thickness makes the cookies bake at the same rate, so thin spots do not burn while thick spots stay raw in the middle.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, molasses, vinegar, 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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