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Dessert

Soft Ginger Bread

A moist gingerbread loaf made with molasses, brown sugar, butter, sour milk, eggs, baking soda, flour, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Soft Ginger Bread

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Soft Ginger Bread

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 batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the molasses and mix well.

  3. Add the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and mix well.

  5. Sift the flour and spices together, then add to the mixture alternately with the sour milk.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into gem pans or a ginger cake tin.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and the characteristic ginger bread flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the crumb set as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the crumb.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture and depth of flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour milk and mix well. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Sour milk supplies that acid, so the soda must be fully dissolved and mixed in so it spreads evenly. Uneven mixing leaves pockets of soda that can taste bitter and cause a patchy rise.

“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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