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Dessert

Cream Ginger Bread

A moist gingerbread loaf made with molasses, sour cream, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cream Ginger Bread

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.

  2. In another bowl, combine the molasses and sour cream.

  3. Gradually add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stirring until well combined.

  4. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Flour
Forms the structure that holds the bread together as it sets.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, along with the characteristic ginger-bread flavor.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, tenderizing the crumb and reacting with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Combining wet and dry ingredients. Stirring only until combined keeps gluten development limited, so the bread stays tender rather than tough. Overmixing toughens the crumb and can deflate the gas the baking soda has produced.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, molasses, cream, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, cream, cinnamon. 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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