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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet, spiced cookie made with molasses, sugar, butter, sour milk, vinegar, baking soda, ginger, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. 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 bowl, mix molasses, sugar, butter, sour milk, and vinegar until well combined.

  2. Add baking soda and ginger, then mix thoroughly.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is manageable.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies crisp as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness in the dough.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda so the dough rises and softens.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and vinegar to produce gas that lightens the cookies.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and dry, producing tough, dense cookies, so add it slowly until the dough is just manageable.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, milk, vinegar, 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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