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Dessert

Barley Ginger Snaps

A crisp cookie made with barley flour, molasses, sugar, ginger, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon 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 ↓

Barley Ginger 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix shortening, molasses, sugar, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, and hot water until well combined.

  2. Gradually add barley flour until the dough is slightly stiffer than wheat flour dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thinly and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + barleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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 sweetness, dark color, and moisture that keeps the dough cohesive.
Shortening
Provides fat that tenderizes the dough and helps the snaps crisp.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the dough and promote browning.
Barley flour
Forms the structure of the dough; it is the base that gives the snaps their body.

The step that matters

Gradually add barley flour. Barley flour absorbs liquid differently than wheat flour, so adding it gradually lets you judge stiffness and avoid a dough that is too soft to roll thinly or too dry to hold its shape.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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