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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A sweet, spiced cookie made with molasses, sugar, butter, cinnamon, ginger, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Snaps

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a saucepan, combine molasses, sugar, butter, cinnamon, ginger, and baking soda.

  2. Boil the mixture for 5 to 8 minutes, then let it cool.

  3. Once cooled, mix in enough flour to form a dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake on floured baking sheets in a 400°F (200°C) oven 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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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 colour, moisture and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps the cookies brown and crisp as they bake.
Butter
Provides fat for tenderness and flavour, and helps the cookies spread and crisp.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the dough and promote browning.
Flour
Provides structure so the cooled mixture can be rolled and cut into shapes.

The step that matters

Boil for 5 to 8 minutes. Boiling drives off water and concentrates the sugars, so the dough firms up and bakes crisp. Too little boiling leaves the dough soft and sticky, while too much can make it hard to handle.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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