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Dessert

Ginger Snaps, or Cookies

A sweet ginger cookie made with molasses, sugar, sour milk, eggs, baking soda, ginger, butter or shortening, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Ginger Snaps, or Cookies

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 large bowl, combine molasses, sugar, sour milk, and eggs.

  2. Stir in baking soda and ginger.

  3. Add butter or shortening and mix well.

  4. Gradually add flour until a stiff paste forms.

Shape and bake

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

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

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and a moist, chewy character to the dough.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lightens the cookies.
Ginger
Provides the signature spicy aroma and flavor.
Butter or shortening
Adds fat for tenderness and helps the cookies spread and crisp.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cookies together once baked.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until a stiff paste forms. Too much flour makes the cookies dry and dense, while too little leaves the dough sticky and hard to shape. Adding it gradually lets you stop at the right stiffness.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, milk, egg, butter, 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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