Skip to main content
Dessert

Gingerbread

A sweet, spiced dough made with butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and flour, baked into gingerbread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Gingerbread

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 ↓

Gingerbread

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.

Prepare the dough

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

  2. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the eggs and mix thoroughly.

  4. Stir in the molasses and water.

  5. Add the ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

  6. Gradually add flour until the dough is firm.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough very thin and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to give the dough richness and a tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and moisture.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the dough.
Ground ginger
Provides the main warm, spicy aroma that defines gingerbread.
Flour
Forms the structure that lets the dough hold its shape when rolled and cut.

The step that matters

Roll the dough very thin. Thin dough bakes through quickly and crisps evenly. Thicker pieces stay soft in the centre and can scorch at the edges before they are done.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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

More gingerbread recipes

Soft 197Cake 72Nuts 68Molasses 52Pudding 38Cookies 36 See all 364 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes