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Dessert

Mountain Ginger Bread

A moist ginger bread loaf made with butter, sugar, spices, molasses, milk, raisins, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Mountain 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. Beat the butter, sugar, and spices together until light.

  2. Add ¼ of the flour and mix well.

  3. Whisk the eggs until very thick, then stir them in gradually.

  4. Mix the milk and molasses together and add gradually.

  5. Add the remaining flour in two parts, mixing well after each addition.

  6. Add the baking soda and then the raisins, mixing thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Butter and line your pan with parchment paper, pour in the batter, and smooth the top.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven 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.

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

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

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked until thick, they trap air and add structure and lift to the batter.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender crumb.
Flour
Its gluten forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweet, slightly acidic flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise and darken.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps it brown during baking.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda. Baking soda needs an acid, here the molasses, to react and release gas. Mixing it in thoroughly spreads it evenly so the cake rises uniformly instead of forming dense or patchy spots.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicethe original
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerfits about as well

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