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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A crisp ginger snap cookie made with butter, sugar, molasses, spices, baking soda, water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 very quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water.

  2. In a bowl, mix the softened butter, sugar, and molasses.

  3. Add the spices and the dissolved baking soda, then beat well.

  4. Stir in the flour until combined.

Shape and bake

  1. Flour a surface and roll the dough as thin as possible.

  2. Cut into circles and bake in a very hot 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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets the dough so the cookies hold their shape.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavour, and sweetness that helps the cookies brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and dissolves to lighten the dough and aid browning.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies crisp and brown as they bake.

The step that matters

Roll the dough as thin as possible. Thin dough dries out and crisps through in a very hot oven. Thick dough stays soft in the middle and may not become crisp.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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