Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet, spiced cookie made with flour, butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon.

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

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 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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour and softened butter until well combined.

  3. Add the sugar, molasses, ginger, cloves, and cinnamon. Mix until smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin on a floured surface.

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

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until lightly browned.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps the cookies crisp as they cool.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and promotes browning during baking.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep flavor, and contributes to the dark color and crispness.
Ground ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookie.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough has less moisture to drive off, so it bakes crisp and snaps rather than turning soft and cakey. Uneven thickness causes uneven baking, so some pieces burn while others stay soft.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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

You might also like

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