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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Gingerbread

A gingerbread cake made with wheat flour, ground rice, cocoa-nut, ginger, treacle, butter, sugar, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon 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 ↓

Cocoa-nut Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Mix together ten ounces of fine wheaten flour, six ounces of ground rice, grated rind of one lemon, and three‑quarters of an ounce of ginger.

  2. Pour nearly boiling treacle, five ounces of fresh butter, and five ounces of sugar, melted together in a saucepan, over the dry mixture.

  3. Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until it is almost a batter and quite smooth.

  4. Leave the batter until it is perfectly cold.

  5. Add five ounces of grated cocoa‑nut to the cold batter and blend thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Lay the paste in small heaps upon a buttered tin.

  2. Bake them in a very slow oven for half to three‑quarters of an hour.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

571Calories
14 gProtein
13 gFat
99 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Lemonjuice of 1 lemon (48ml)12
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 Eliza Acton. 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. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + cocoatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together548 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-undecalactone (coconut, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

Wheaten flour
Provides the main structure that holds the gingerbread together as it bakes.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark colour, and helps the gingerbread stay soft.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, softening the crumb and carrying flavour.
Grated cocoa-nut
Adds moisture, chewiness and a toasted coconut flavour to the batter.
Ground rice (in the method)
Lightens the texture slightly and gives the crumb a more delicate bite than flour alone.

The step that matters

Let the batter go perfectly cold before adding the cocoa-nut. Warm batter would melt or soften the butter and cocoa-nut unevenly, so the cold batter keeps the mixture stable and the texture even when blended and baked.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Cashew nutfits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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