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Dessert

Hard Sugar Gingerbread

A stiff gingerbread dough made with butter, sour milk, ginger, eggs, sugar, soda, and flour, rolled thin, cut into squares, and baked quickly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By E. Putnam · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hard Sugar Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Combine butter, sugar, eggs, sour milk, soda, ginger, and flour to make a stiff paste.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin on tin sheets.

  2. Mark squares with a cake-cutter.

  3. Bake quickly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

331Calories
14 gProtein
25 gFat
13 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Sour Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By E. Putnam. 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. See the original page.

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

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Milk + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,519 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  5. Butter + gingertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich, crisp bite in the finished gingerbread.
Eggs
Add structure and binding so the stiff dough holds its shape when rolled.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the soda, helping the dough rise and lightening its texture.
Soda (in the method)
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas for lift and a lighter crumb.
Ginger
Provides the main aroma and spicy flavour that defines this gingerbread.

The step that matters

Bake quickly. A thin, stiff dough dries and darkens fast in the oven. Baking it quickly at a high heat keeps it crisp without burning or turning bitter.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, milk, 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.

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