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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A ginger cookie made with flour, molasses, brown sugar, lard, baking soda, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger 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. In a large bowl, combine the flour, molasses, brown sugar, lard, baking soda, and ginger. Mix until a dough forms.

  2. Roll out the dough thinly on a floured surface.

  3. Cut into desired shapes.

Bake

  1. Just before baking, sprinkle a little pounded white sugar over the cookies.

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

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that promotes browning.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay soft.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and carries the spice flavor.
Baking soda or pearlash
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping the cookies rise and spread.
Ginger
Supplies the aromatic, spicy flavor that defines the cookie.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thinly. Thin dough bakes quickly and evenly, giving a crisp snap; thick dough stays soft and cakey in the middle and may not brown properly.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, sugar. 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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