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Dessert

Ginger Snaps

A chewy ginger cookie made with molasses, shortening, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon 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 ↓

Ginger Snaps

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine molasses, shortening, and sugar.

  2. Heat on the stove until it comes to a boil, then let it boil for 40 minutes.

  3. Remove from heat and add a pinch of baking soda.

  4. Stir in ginger, cloves, cinnamon, salt, and cayenne pepper.

  5. Add flour gradually until the dough is soft enough to roll out.

  6. Use the dough while warm.

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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the main sweetness, dark color, and deep flavor that define the cookie.
Shortening
Adds fat for a tender texture and helps the dough hold its shape.
Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so it can be rolled out.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lighten the texture and aid spreading and browning.

The step that matters

Boiling the molasses mixture. Boiling for 40 minutes concentrates the molasses and drives off water, which changes the sugar and moisture balance. Letting it boil too briefly or too long shifts how stiff and dark the dough becomes, so the dough's texture depends on this timing.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, clove, cinnamon, pepper, 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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