Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet, spicy cookie made with lard, molasses, sugar, ginger, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine lard, molasses, sugar, baking soda, and hot water.

  2. Add ginger and mix well.

  3. Gradually incorporate flour until the dough is soft but manageable.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lard
Adds fat that keeps the snaps tender and crisp as they bake.
New orleans molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and a deep flavor that supports the spice.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown and crisp at the edges.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and help it spread and set.
Ginger
Adds the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookie.
Flour
Provides structure so the dough holds its shape when rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Roll the dough thin. Thin dough bakes through and dries out enough to turn crisp; thick pieces stay soft and chewy in the center. Rolling it evenly also helps every cookie bake at the same rate.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes