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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. 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

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, molasses, butter, lard, and water until well combined.

  2. Add the ginger, baking soda, ground cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Mix until smooth.

Bake and serve

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

  2. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are firm.

  3. Allow to cool on a wire rack before serving.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color and a deep, sweet flavor to the cookies.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to help the cookies rise and spread.
Butter
Adds fat for rich flavor and a tender texture.
Lard
Adds fat that helps keep the cookies tender and soft.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown and stay chewy.
Ginger
Provides the main spicy, warm flavor of the cookies.

The step that matters

Bake until the edges are firm. Baking soda and molasses make the dough spread and darken quickly, so the cookies can overbake and turn hard. Pulling them when the edges are firm keeps the centers soft as they cool.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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

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