Name: Ginger Snaps
Ingredients: 1 cup butter; 2 cups brown sugar; 1 cup dark syrup; 2 eggs; 2 tablespoons ground ginger; 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon; 2 teaspoons baking soda; Flour (enough to roll thin)

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 ↓

Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

In a saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar, and dark syrup. Boil until thick.
Remove from heat and beat the mixture until cool.
Add eggs, ginger, cinnamon, and dissolved baking soda.
Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll out.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
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

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerthe original
Allspicefits about as well

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