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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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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. Combine molasses, butter, and sugar in a saucepan.

  2. Heat until it comes to a boil.

  3. Remove from heat.

  4. Stir in ginger and baking soda.

  5. Add flour gradually until the dough is thin enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough.

  2. Cut into desired shapes.

  3. Bake in a preheated 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. Molasses + sugartop 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

New orleans molasses
Provides the dark color, rich flavor, and sweetness that define the snaps.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the snaps brown and crisp in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and help it spread.
Flour
Gives the dough structure so it can be rolled thin and hold its cut shapes.

The step that matters

Add flour gradually until the dough is thin enough to roll out. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and tough, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to handle. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough rolls thin, which helps the cookies bake crisp rather than soft.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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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