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Dessert

Ginger Nuts

A gingerbread cookie made with flour, butter, brown sugar, molasses, ground ginger, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Nuts

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, cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  2. Add the molasses and ground ginger, mixing well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into small cakes.

  2. Bake 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.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Allspice + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and helps the creamed dough hold air.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness, and color, and helps the cakes brown.
Ground ginger
Gives the cakes their main spiced aroma and warmth.

The step that matters

Roll the dough thin. Thin pieces bake through and crisp evenly, while thick dough stays soft in the center and can burn at the edges before it sets.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, molasses, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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