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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A crisp cookie made with sugar, molasses, butter, ginger, egg, baking soda, water, salt, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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, butter or lard, ginger, egg, baking soda, and warm water.

  2. Gradually add the flour and a pinch of salt, mixing until a soft dough forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough as thin as possible on a floured surface.

  2. Cut into desired shapes and place on a baking sheet.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Butter or lard
Provides fat for tenderness and a crisp, short texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the dough and adds moisture and structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift and lighten the cookie while it spreads.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cookies brown and crisp as they bake.

The step that matters

Roll the dough as thin as possible. Thin dough dries out and crisps through in the oven, while thick dough stays soft in the middle. Uneven thickness makes some cookies burn while others remain underbaked.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, butter, egg, 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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