Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger Bread

A sweet, spiced loaf made with ginger, molasses, and sour milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

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. Cream the butter in a bowl.

  2. Add the sugar, spices, and beaten egg, mixing well.

  3. Sift the baking soda and salt with the flour.

  4. Add the flour mixture alternately with the sour milk and molasses to the butter mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a pan or gem tins.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake-like crumb together.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness.
Sour milk
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Add the flour mixture alternately with the sour milk and molasses. Alternating dry and wet additions keeps the batter smooth and well combined, so gluten develops evenly and the batter does not curdle or turn tough. Overmixing after adding flour can make the crumb dense.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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