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Dessert

Cornmeal Gingerbread

A gingerbread cake made with cornmeal, buckwheat flour, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Cornmeal Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Sift together the cornmeal, buckwheat flour, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, salt, and ginger.

  2. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, molasses, and melted shortening.

  3. Add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick comes out clean.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Buckwheat + flourtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together660 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Buckwheat + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together56 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Cornmeal
Provides the coarse, grainy body and structure of the cake.
Buckwheat flour
Adds earthy flavour and gives structure alongside the cornmeal.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk or molasses to lift the batter as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour, moisture, and its characteristic deep flavour.
Milk
Hydrates the dry flour and cornmeal and keeps the crumb moist.
Shortening
Adds fat for tenderness and a softer crumb.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Cornmeal and buckwheat batters set slowly and can look done on top while the centre is still wet. Testing the centre with a toothpick confirms the crumb has set, so the cake is neither gummy nor dry.

Swap the buckwheat

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Buckwheatthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk, cinnamon, molasses, clove, 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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