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Dessert

New York Ginger Snaps

A buttery ginger cookie made with molasses and flour, baked until lightly browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

New York Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  3. Add the molasses and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and ginger.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until combined.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake for a few minutes until lightly browned.

  3. Allow to cool; the flavor improves with time.

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to give the dough richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness and gentle browning.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin dough together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and the dark color of the cookie.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the dough and help it spread and brown.
Ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookie.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes quickly into a crisp snap; thick dough stays soft and can burn at the edges before the centre sets.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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