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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet, spiced cookie made with molasses, sugar, butter, ginger, cinnamon, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Snaps

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, mix molasses, sugar, and butter or lard until well combined.

  2. Stir in baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and water.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is easy to roll out.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until crisp.

  3. Cool before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 sweetness, moisture and a deep flavour that defines the cookie.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown and crisp as they bake.
Butter or lard
Adds fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the dough hold together.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift the dough and help the cookies spread and brown.
Ground ginger
Provides the spicy, warm flavour that gives ginger snaps their character.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is easy to roll out. Adding too much flour makes the dough dry and tough, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough is smooth and workable.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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