Skip to main content
Dessert

Baker's Gingerbread

A sweet gingerbread dough made with molasses, sugar, eggs, sour milk, butter, baking soda, ginger, and flour, baked into thick squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter 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 ↓

Baker's Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix molasses, sugar, eggs, sour milk, and butter until well combined.

  3. Add baking soda and ginger, then gradually incorporate enough flour to form a dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough out and cut it into thick squares.

  2. Before baking, cover the squares with the beaten egg white.

  3. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor to the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the gingerbread brown as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure as they set during baking.
Sour milk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the dough.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to release gas, helping the dough rise.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda and gradually incorporating the flour. Baking soda reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses right away, so it should be mixed in promptly. Adding flour gradually lets you reach a workable dough without overworking it, which keeps the gingerbread tender rather than tough.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes