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Dessert

Rich Spiced Gingerbread

Rich spiced gingerbread is a sweet cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, flour, spices, eggs, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Rich Spiced Gingerbread

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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Butter small square cake tins or thin sheet pans.

  3. Mix the salt and baking soda with the flour.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter until smooth.

  2. Beat the brown sugar into the creamed butter until light and fluffy.

  3. Combine the molasses and sour milk in a separate bowl.

  4. Beat the egg yolks, then the whites, and combine them.

  5. Add the butter and sugar mixture to the flour, then gradually mix in the beaten eggs.

  6. Pour in the molasses and sour milk mixture, stirring quickly until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into the prepared tins and bake in the 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. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Butter
Creamed with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb stay soft and dark.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture, and the dark colour typical of gingerbread.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the cake.

The step that matters

Stirring the batter after adding the molasses and sour milk. Once the liquid is added, gluten in the flour begins to develop; stirring quickly until just combined keeps the crumb tender, while overmixing makes it tough. The baking soda also starts reacting with the acid right away, so the batter should go into the tins without delay.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, flour, egg, milk, ginger. 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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