Skip to main content
Dessert

Soft Ginger Bread

A moist gingerbread loaf made with ginger, cinnamon, eggs, and flour, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Soft Ginger Bread

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soft Ginger Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Dissolve ginger and cinnamon in boiling water.

  2. Add eggs and mix well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the batter is thick, similar to cake batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

  3. Cool before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the gluten and starch network that gives the gingerbread its body.
Ginger
Provides the main spiced aroma and flavor of the gingerbread.
Cinnamon
Adds warm, sweet spice aroma that complements the ginger.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter is thick. Adding flour gradually lets you judge thickness by eye and avoid lumps. Too much flour makes the crumb dense and dry, while too little leaves a loose batter that bakes flat and gummy.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cinnamon, egg, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cinnamon, egg, flour. 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 soft gingerbread recipes

Cake 4 See all 197 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesSoft Ginger CakeSoft Ginger Cake56 recipes