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Dessert

Baltimore Ginger Snaps

A ginger snap cookie made with molasses, ginger, baking soda, milk, butter, lard, brown sugar, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Baltimore Ginger Snaps

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, ginger, baking soda, milk, butter, lard, brown sugar, and coarse sea salt. Mix well until smooth.

  2. Gradually add flour until a dough forms that can be rolled out.

Bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut into very thin cakes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until crisp. The pan does not need to be greased.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 a deep sweet flavor to the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness, and helps the cookies crisp as they bake.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the snaps tender and helps them spread and crisp.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lighten the dough and promote browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough very thin. Thin cakes bake through and turn crisp; thick dough stays soft in the middle and can burn at the edges before it dries out.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Jalapenofits about as well

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