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Dessert

Honeycomb Gingerbread

A gingerbread dough made with flour, brown sugar, butter, allspice, ginger, lemon peel, lemon juice, and treacle, baked thin and cut into squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Allspice and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Honeycomb Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Combine flour, brown sugar, butter, allspice, ginger, lemon peel, and lemon juice.

  2. Add about half a pound of treacle to make a thin paste.

  3. Beat the mixture well.

Bake and shape

  1. Butter sheet tins.

  2. Spread the paste very thinly over the tins.

  3. Bake in a rather slow oven until done.

  4. Withdraw the tins from the oven.

  5. Cut the baked dough into squares about four inches each.

  6. Roll each piece around the fingers as it is raised from the tin.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

613Calories
13 gProtein
13 gFat
109 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 5 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Allspice1 tsp ground (1.9g)5
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.

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. Allspice + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + allspicetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  5. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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 thin gingerbread sheet together after baking.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the gingerbread brown and take on a caramel flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender, crisp texture.
Treacle (in the method)
Adds moisture, sweetness and a deep flavour, and helps the paste spread thinly.

The step that matters

Spread the paste very thinly over the tins. A thin layer bakes through evenly and turns crisp and lacy, creating the honeycomb-like texture. A thick layer stays soft in the middle and will not roll well.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, ginger. 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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