Name: Ginger Snap Creams
Ingredients: 20 lbs. fondant; 2 oz. burnt sugar; ½ oz. ground ginger or ginger extract

Why it works: Sugar and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes. Both carry 1-penten-3-one, which smells fish, pungent. The science ↓

Ginger Snap Creams

Ingredients

20 lbs. fondant
2 oz. burnt sugar
½ oz. ground ginger or ginger extract

Directions

Make the filling

Melt the fondant over a steam bath.
Add burnt sugar and ground ginger or ginger extract.

Shape and finish

Run the mixture into starch in wafer shape impressions.
When ready, crystallize them in a 2½ inch crystal or leave them as they are.
These are good to dip in chocolate.

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.

Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together14,054 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Fondant: Forms the sugar base that sets into the creamy, smooth body of the candy.
Burnt sugar: Adds caramel-like depth and color to the sweet base.
Ground ginger: Supplies the spicy, aromatic flavor that defines the snap.

“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.