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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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, mix together the molasses, sugar, lard, and boiling water until well combined.

  2. Add the baking soda, ground ginger, and red pepper, and mix until smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough out thin on a floured surface.

  2. Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until crisp.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

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

  5. Molasses + peppertop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the dough.
Lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and helps it crisp when baked.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the dough and promote browning.
Ground ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookie.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough bakes through and turns crisp, while thick dough stays soft and chewy in the center. Rolling evenly also ensures all cookies bake at the same rate.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Clovefits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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