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Dessert

Ginger Nuts

A sweet, spiced doughnut-like cookie made with molasses, ginger, and butter, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ginger Nuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine molasses, salt, baking soda, ginger, and butter.

  2. Add boiling water and mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is soft enough to roll out.

Shape and fry

  1. Cut out shapes like doughnuts.

  2. Fry in hot fat until golden brown.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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. Ginger + buttertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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
Provides sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to release gas, lightening the dough and helping it rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough hold its shape when rolled and cut.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives it a richer texture.
Ginger
Contributes the warm, spicy aroma that defines the flavor.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until golden brown. Hot fat sets the outside of the dough quickly, forming a crisp crust and limiting how much oil the dough absorbs. Fat that is too cool soaks in and leaves the shapes greasy and heavy, while fat that is too hot browns the outside before the inside cooks through.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, 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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