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Dessert

Aunt Susan Hauer's Ginger Nuts

A cookie made with molasses, brown sugar, butter, orange peel, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Aunt Susan Hauer's Ginger Nuts

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine molasses, brown sugar, and butter.

  2. Add grated orange peel, ginger, cinnamon, and allspice.

  3. Mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Orange + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,437 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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 sweetness to the dough.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cookies brown as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the stiff dough.
Flour
Provides structure so the dough holds its shape when rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Mix in enough flour to form a stiff dough. A dough that is too soft spreads during baking and loses its shape, while one that is too stiff bakes up dry and hard. Adding flour gradually lets you reach the right consistency.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, butter, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, 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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