Skip to main content
Dessert

Plain Gingerbread

A simple gingerbread cake made with molasses, sour cream, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Plain 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 your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the molasses, sour cream, and egg.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little warm water and add it to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the salt and ginger until well combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased baking dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

  2. Serve warm.

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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + creamtop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,408 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Cream + gingertop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Egg + gingertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,337 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Provides dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness and a slight tang to the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and gives it structure as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and sour cream to produce gas, helping the gingerbread rise.
Ground ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines the gingerbread flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda fully before adding it. Baking soda must be evenly dispersed in the batter so it reacts with the acidic molasses and sour cream throughout. Lumps can leave bitter pockets and uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, cream, egg. 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