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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A crisp ginger snap cookie made with brown sugar, molasses, butter, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, rub the brown sugar into the butter until well combined.

  2. Add the molasses and baking soda, mixing thoroughly.

  3. Stir in the ground ginger, cloves, and cinnamon.

  4. Gradually add flour until a stiff dough forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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. Clove + cinnamontop 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the snaps brown as they bake.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and a chewy-crisp texture to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and carries the spices through the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the dough and help it spread and crisp.
Ground ginger
Provides the dominant warm, pungent flavor that defines the snaps.
Flour
Provides the structure that turns the mixture into a stiff dough that holds its shape.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough dries out and crisps through during baking, while thick dough stays soft and chewy in the centre. Rolling it evenly also helps the snaps bake at the same rate.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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