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Dessert

Ginger Crackers

A crisp cracker made with flour, butter, lard, brown sugar, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, sour milk, baking soda, eggs, and molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Crackers

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slack oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix the flour, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon.

  3. In another bowl, combine the eggs, sour milk, and baking soda.

  4. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture and mix well.

  5. Stir in enough molasses to form a stiff dough.

  6. In a saucepan, boil the lard, butter, and molasses briefly, then let it cool.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into crackers.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until crisp.

Store

  1. Store the crackers in a cotton bag in a warm room to keep them hard and 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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 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 + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the dough so the crackers hold their shape.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to lighten the dough and aid browning.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture to the dough.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, color, and moisture, and helps bind the stiff dough.
Butter
Adds fat for flavor and a tender, crisp texture.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough dries out and crisps evenly in the oven. Thick pieces stay soft in the center and may not become crisp.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, milk, egg. 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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