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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Ginger Snaps

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Cream the molasses and lard together.

  2. Add ginger and pepper.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of hot water and add it to the mixture.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is rollable.

Bake

  1. Roll the dough thin, cut out shapes, and bake in buttered pans with a little flour sprinkled over them.

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 + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, depth of flavour, and moisture that keeps the cookies chewy.
Lard
Provides fat that tenderises the dough and carries flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift and spread the cookies as they bake.
Flour
Provides structure so the dough can be rolled and cut into shapes.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in hot water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly with the molasses. Undissolved pockets can cause uneven rising and dark spots in the cookies.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, pepper, 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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