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Dessert

Hard Sugar Gingerbread

A firm gingerbread dough made with butter, sugar, milk, flour, baking powder, salt, and ginger, baked thin on a pan.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Fannie Merritt Farmer · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 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 and shape the dough

  1. Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, milk, and dry ingredients mixed and sifted.

  2. Put some of the mixture on an inverted dripping-pan and roll as thinly as possible to cover the pan.

  3. Mark the dough with a coarse grater.

Bake and cut

  1. Sprinkle with sugar and bake in a moderate oven.

  2. Before removing from the pan, cut into strips four and one‑half inches long by one and one‑half inches wide.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

757Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
120 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

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

By Fannie Merritt Farmer. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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 + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 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).

Butter and flour 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
Forms the main structure of the dough, so the baked gingerbread holds its shape.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown in the oven.
Milk
Adds moisture that binds the dough together.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking, helping the dough rise and lighten.
Ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines gingerbread.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough as thinly as possible. A thin layer dries out and crisps in the oven, giving the hard texture this recipe is named for. Thick dough stays soft and chewy in the centre.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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