Skip to main content
Dessert

Brandy Snaps

A sweet ginger biscuit made with brandy, butter, treacle, sugar, flour, and cinnamon, baked into small rounds.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Brandy Snaps

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter, sugar, and treacle together.

  2. Add the ginger, flour, and cinnamon to the mixture.

Bake and shape

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture (about the size of a 5/- coin) onto a well-buttered baking sheet.

  2. Bake in a brisk oven at 400°F (200°C) for 5 to 10 minutes.

  3. Cut into pieces and roll them around a wooden roller (1½ inches in diameter) to cool.

  4. Optionally, fill with whipped cream.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Treacle or syrup
Adds sweetness and a dark, sticky body that helps the batter spread and set crisp.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the batter spread thinly and become crisp as it cools.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter caramelise and brown in the oven.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin batter together as it bakes.
Ginger
Adds warm, spicy aroma that defines the flavour of the snaps.

The step that matters

Shaping the hot snaps. Snaps bake until pliable and must be shaped quickly, since they stiffen and crack as they cool. Rolling them around the roller while still warm gives the curled shape.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes