Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet, spiced cookie made with brown sugar, butter, molasses, coffee, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Mix the coffee and baking soda in a bowl.

  2. Combine the brown sugar, butter, molasses, and coffee mixture in a saucepan.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the cinnamon and ginger, then stir well.

  5. Sift in enough flour to form a dough.

  6. Stir until the mixture is cool.

Store

  1. Store in an airtight container.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay soft.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and carries the spice flavors.
Molasses
Adds moisture, chewiness, and deep flavor, and its acidity works with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic coffee and molasses to lift and lighten the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together.

The step that matters

Bring the mixture to a boil. Sugar and molasses can scorch or turn bitter if the syrup boils too hard or too long, so watch the heat closely and keep the mixture from burning.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, coffee, cinnamon, 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesCoffee Ice CreamCoffee Ice Cream91 recipes