Name: Brandy Snap
Ingredients: 1 lb flour; 1 lb butter; 1 lb golden syrup; 1 oz ground ginger; juice of 1/2 lemon; 1/2 lb sugar

Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Brandy Snap

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

In an enamel pan over gentle heat, combine flour, butter, golden syrup, ground ginger, lemon juice, and sugar.
Stir continuously until well mixed.
Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture 6 inches apart onto greased baking sheets.
Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until light golden brown.
Once slightly cooled, shape by placing on rollers or over a rounded stick.

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.

Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Swap the ginger

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Gingerthe original
Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, syrup, lemon, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.