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Dessert

Bakers' Ginger Snaps

A sweet ginger snap cookie made with brown sugar, molasses, shortening, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Bakers' Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Boil together two cups of brown sugar, two cups of cooking molasses, one cup of shortening, one large tablespoonful of ginger, one tablespoonful of ground cinnamon, and one teaspoonful of cloves until dissolved; remove from heat and let cool.

  2. While the mixture cools, sift four cups of flour.

  3. Stir part of the sifted flour into the cooled mixture.

  4. Dissolve one teaspoonful of soda in a tablespoonful of warm water and beat into the mixture.

  5. Stir in the remainder of the flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll into long rolls about an inch in diameter.

  6. Cut the rolls into half‑inch pieces.

Bake and cool

  1. Place the pieces on well‑buttered tins, giving plenty of room to spread.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven.

  3. Let the cookies cool before removing them from the tins.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

677Calories
13 gProtein
13 gFat
126 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By F. L. Gillette and Hugo Ziemann. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. See the original page.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 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.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor and dark color to the dough.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the cookies and carries the spice flavors.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough hold its shape when rolled and cut.
Soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift the dough and darken the cookies.
Ground cinnamon
Contributes warm aromatic spice flavor to the cookies.

The step that matters

Stiffening the dough before rolling. Dough that is too soft will spread on the tins and lose its shape. Stirring in the remaining flour until the dough is stiff enough to roll gives the cookies structure during baking.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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

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