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Ginger Snaps

A sweet ginger cookie made with molasses, shortening, ginger, baking soda, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Boil the molasses for five minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and add the melted shortening.

  3. Stir in the salt, ginger, and baking soda.

  4. Add enough flour to form a stiff dough.

Roll and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thin and bake.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 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

Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark flavor and moisture that keeps the dough soft to shape.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives a short, crisp texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lift the dough and help it brown.
Flour
Forms the gluten network that gives the stiff dough its structure.
Ginger
Adds warm spice aroma that defines the flavor.

The step that matters

Roll out the dough thin and bake.. A thin sheet of dough loses moisture quickly in the oven, so it bakes dry and crisp. Thicker dough stays softer inside, which gives a chewier cookie.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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