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Baking

White Giktgebbread

A spiced gingerbread made from flour, butter, sugar, lemon rind, ginger, nutmeg, soda and milk, rolled, cut and baked into cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

White Giktgebbread

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.

Make the dough

  1. Rub the butter into the flour.

  2. Add the finely pounded and sifted sugar, minced lemon rind, ginger, and nutmeg. Mix well together.

  3. Warm the milk slightly, stir in the soda, and work the mixture into a smooth paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll it out and cut into cakes.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 15 to 20 minutes.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the gingerbread together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Loaf sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in the mixture to help the cakes rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Working the soda into the milk mixture. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed through the paste, or pockets of it can leave bitter, soapy spots and uneven rise.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, milk):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, lemon, nutmeg, 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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