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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine molasses, sugar, and butter in a saucepan and boil for about 3 minutes.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon.

  3. Gradually add flour until the mixture forms a dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Knead the dough on a floured surface until smooth and thin.

  2. Roll out the dough on baking sheets and cut into squares or desired shapes before baking.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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 dark color, moisture, and the characteristic rich, sweet-bitter flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and help the cookies spread and rise.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps the dough hold together.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the dough and lets it be rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda after boiling. Baking soda reacts quickly with the acidic molasses, so it should be added off the heat once the mixture has boiled. Adding it while the mixture is still boiling can cause it to foam over and lose its leavening power.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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