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Dessert

Fruit Snaps

Fruit snaps are sweet, spiced cookies made with sugar, butter, molasses, currants, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Fruit 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, cream together the sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Add the molasses and mix well.

  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.

  4. In a separate bowl, combine the baking soda, ginger, allspice, cloves, and cinnamon.

  5. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, mixing until a soft dough forms. Fold in the currants.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough into logs and slice into rounds.

  2. Place on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes or 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. Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Currant + allspicetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

  5. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air, giving a light, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and extra browning to the snaps.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add richness and structure.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the snaps rise and spread.
Currants
Add chewy pockets of fruit sweetness throughout the dough.

The step that matters

Gradually add the dry ingredients. Adding the dry ingredients slowly and mixing only until a soft dough forms keeps the dough evenly combined. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the snaps tough.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, egg, ginger, allspice, clove. 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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