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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet, spiced cookie made with molasses, brown sugar, lard, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, baking soda, boiling water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. 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, brown sugar, and lard until well combined.

  2. Add ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda dissolved in boiling water.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff.

Shape and bake

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

  2. 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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 deep sweetness, dark color, and a moist, chewy character to the dough.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown during baking.
Lard
Provides fat that gives the snaps tenderness and a crisp, short texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and help the snaps spread and crisp.
Flour
Provides the structure that stiffens the dough so it can be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour should be added a little at a time until the dough is stiff. Too much flour at once can make the dough dry and tough, while too little leaves it too soft to roll and cut cleanly.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, cinnamon, clove, 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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