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Dessert

Crisp Gingerbread

A sweet, spiced dough made with flour, butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, cloves, allspice, mace, baked into crisp cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Crisp Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Cut the butter into the flour and rub it through until well mixed.

  3. Add the sugar and spices to the mixture.

  4. Wet the mixture with the molasses and roll it out very thin.

Bake and finish

  1. Beat the dough lightly before cutting it into cakes.

  2. Bake in the hot oven until done.

  3. To make the cakes shine, rub them with a cloth dipped in molasses.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Allspice + macetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender, crisp texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet flavor to the dough.
Ground ginger
Provides the main warm, spicy aroma that defines this gingerbread.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough very thin. Thin dough dries out and bakes through quickly, which gives the crisp texture this recipe is named for. Thick dough stays soft in the center and can burn at the edges before it sets.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, ginger, clove, allspice, molasses. 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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