Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet ginger cookie made with molasses, brown sugar, butter, lard, sour milk, baking soda, and ginger.

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

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 large bowl, combine molasses, brown sugar, butter, lard, sour milk, baking soda, and ginger. Mix until the dough is soft enough to roll.

  2. Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Let cool before serving.

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. 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. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness that keeps the cookies chewy-crisp.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, helping the cookies brown and stay tender.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender texture as it firms and melts during baking.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cookies tender and helps them spread and crisp.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity of the sour milk and molasses to lift and lighten the dough.

The step that matters

Bake until crisp. Ginger snaps depend on baking long enough to dry the centers. Underbaking leaves them soft, while overbaking can make them bitter from the molasses sugars scorching.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes