Name: Hard Molasses Gingerbread
Ingredients: one pint of molasses; one cup of sour milk; one cup of ginger; a pound of butter; two tear spoonfuls of soda; one table-spoonful of cloves; one lemon

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Hard Molasses Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

Combine molasses, butter, sour milk, soda, ginger, cloves, lemon rind, and flour to make a stiff paste.
Butter the tin sheets.

Shape and bake

Roll the cake on the sheets with fine brown sugar, as thin as possible.
Bake quickly.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

379Calories

9 gProtein

20 gFat

45 gCarbs

What these numbers assume: 7 portions

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Sour Milk	1 cup (244ml) whole	149
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Molasses	1 tbsp (20g)	58
Sugar	1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated	49
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Ginger	1 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.

Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,154 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,150 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,483 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses: Adds sweetness, dark colour and a rich, moist body to the gingerbread.
Butter: Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb in the finished cake.
Sour milk: Its acidity reacts with the soda to help the cake rise and soften.
Soda: Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the dough.
Ginger: Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines the gingerbread.

The step that matters

Bake quickly. The instruction to bake quickly matters because the thin sheets can dry out or burn if left too long. Quick, hot baking keeps them crisp at the edges while the soda is still active.

Swap the lemon

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

Figfits better
Vanillafits better
Applefits better
Lemonthe original

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

Lemon Cake228 recipes

Ginger Cookies213 recipes

Lemon Ice147 recipes

Lemon Sherbet103 recipes

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Hard Molasses Gingerbread