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Dessert

Baker's Ginger Snaps

A crisp cookie made with brown sugar, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Baker's 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. Boil together brown sugar, cooking molasses, shortening, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves.

  2. Remove from heat and let cool.

  3. Sift flour and stir it into the cooled mixture.

  4. Dissolve baking soda in warm water and beat it into the mixture.

  5. Stir in the remaining flour until stiff enough to roll.

Bake

  1. Roll thin and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Cooking molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor to the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the stiff dough hold its shape when rolled.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the cookies rise and spread slightly.
Shortening
Adds fat for tenderness and a crisp texture in the baked cookies.
Brown sugar
Contributes sweetness and moisture, helping the cookies stay chewy and browned.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding flour and baking soda. If the boiled mixture is still hot, the flour can cook unevenly and the baking soda reacts too quickly, so the dough may spread or lose its rise. Cooling keeps the dough workable and stiff enough to roll.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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