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Dessert

Gingerbread Nuts

A gingerbread cookie dough made with flour, butter, spices, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Gingerbread Nuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, rub together the flour and butter until well combined.

  3. Add the ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, and mix well.

  4. Stir in the molasses until fully incorporated.

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

  6. Take a handful of dough and knead it into small cakes.

  7. Combine all the dough and knead for a long time until smooth.

Shape and bake

  1. Divide the dough in half and roll each half into thin sheets.

  2. Cut the sheets into small cakes and place them on buttered baking trays.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until firm.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cookies together as they bake.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the dough.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and depth of flavour, and helps the cookies brown.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and help it rise.
Ground ginger
Gives the cookies their characteristic warm, spicy aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Knead the dough until smooth. Kneading after the molasses and baking soda are added develops the gluten and evens out the dough, so the cookies bake uniformly and hold their shape when rolled and cut.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cinnamon, clove, allspice, molasses. 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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