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Dessert

Molasses Wafers

A sweet biscuit made from molasses, butter, flour, spices, and baking soda, baked until crisp.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Molasses Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Heat the molasses in a saucepan until it reaches boiling point.

  2. Pour the hot molasses over the butter and mix until melted.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, ginger, salt, and baking soda.

  4. Add the dry ingredients to the molasses mixture and mix well.

  5. Chill the dough, then roll it out on a floured surface as thin as possible.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake in a moderate 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 a deep flavor that gives the wafers their character.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the dough tender and richly flavored as it melts into the molasses.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough together and sets as the wafers bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and help it spread and brown.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough as thin as possible. Thin dough bakes through and turns crisp; thick dough stays soft and chewy in the centre. Chilling firms the butter so the dough rolls out without tearing or sticking.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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