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Dessert

Fruit Snaps

A spiced cookie made with butter, raisins, currants, molasses, and spices, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Fruit Snaps

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 and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs and molasses, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the raisins, currants, and spices.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little hot water and add to the mixture.

  5. Gradually add flour until the dough is soft enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until lightly browned.

Store

  1. These will keep for several months.

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. Raisin + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

  3. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

  4. Raisin + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the dough body and a tender, rich texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as it sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep color and flavor to the snaps.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to help the snaps rise and spread lightly.
Raisins
Add moisture and chewy pockets of sweetness throughout the dough.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is soft enough to roll out. Flour absorbs liquid and builds structure, so adding it too quickly can make the dough stiff and crumbly, while too much makes the snaps tough and dry.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, raisin, sugar, molasses, egg, ginger, clove):

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, raisin, sugar, molasses, egg, ginger, clove. 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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