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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg, molasses, brown sugar, and the butter and lard until well combined.

  3. Stir in the sour milk, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, lemon extract, and vanilla extract.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk and add it to the mixture.

  5. Gradually add flour until the dough is not too stiff.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of dough onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or 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. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 colour and moisture, and helps the cookies stay chewy.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that lifts and spreads the dough.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds structure as the cookies set.
Butter and lard
Provides fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the cookies spread.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the dough once mixed in.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds a slight tang.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour is added gradually because too much develops gluten and makes the dough stiff, which stops the cookies from spreading and softening as they bake.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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