Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet ginger cookie made with molasses, lard, baking soda, water, ginger, and flour.

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

Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix molasses, lard, and baking soda dissolved in boiling water.

  2. Add ground ginger and mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll out.

Shape and bake

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

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until lightly browned.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 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
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep colour to the dough.
Lard
Adds fat that keeps the snaps tender and helps them crisp as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and promotes a lighter rise and faster browning.
Ground ginger
Provides the main spicy aroma and flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough be rolled and cut into shapes.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is thin enough to roll out. Adding flour gradually lets you stop once the dough is rollable. Too much flour makes the dough stiff and the baked snaps dry and tough rather than crisp.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, flour. 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 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes