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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A crisp cookie made with sugar, molasses, lard, ginger, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the sugar, molasses, and lard until well combined.

  2. Add the boiling water, baking soda, salt, and ground ginger, and stir until smooth.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is easy to roll out but not too stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough on a floured surface and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until crisp.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. 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 dark color, moisture, and the deep sweet flavor typical of ginger snaps.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acidity and helps the cookies spread and lighten as they bake.
Lard
Provides fat that tenderizes the dough and helps the cookies turn crisp.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as the cookies bake.
Ground ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cookie.

The step that matters

Adding the flour. Flour should be added gradually until the dough is easy to roll out but not too stiff. Too much flour makes the dough tough and dry, so the cookies bake up hard rather than crisp, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, 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.

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