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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet ginger cookie made with molasses, butter, spices, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Ginger Snaps

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Combine molasses and butter in a saucepan over medium heat and scald until thickened.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

  3. Once cooled, add ginger, cinnamon, allspice, baking powder, and enough flour to form a rollable dough.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) until firm.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and helps the cookies stay chewy.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and tenderness in the dough.
Flour
Gives structure and thickens the dough so it can be rolled and cut.
Baking powder
Releases gas to lift the cookies slightly as they bake.
Ginger
Supplies the signature spicy aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Cooling the molasses mixture before adding other ingredients. Adding the spices and flour while the molasses and butter mixture is still hot can alter the dough's texture and make it hard to handle. Letting it cool first lets the dough come together into a firm, rollable consistency.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, flour, cinnamon, allspice. 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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