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Dessert

Ginger Wafers

A sweet, ginger-flavored wafer made with sugar, butter, molasses, coffee, ginger, baking soda, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Ginger Wafers

Why it works: Sugar and molasses 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 Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the molasses, brewed coffee, ginger, baking soda, and salt; mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until a soft dough forms.

Shape and bake

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

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

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the wafers.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift the dough and help it spread and brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the soft dough together once shaped.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes through quickly and crisps into a wafer; thick pieces stay soft in the center and may burn at the edges before they set.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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