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Dessert

Old English Ginger Bread

A simple gingerbread cake made with eggs, spices, baking soda, boiling water, and optional raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Old English 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, combine the eggs, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water and add it to the mixture.

  3. If desired, fold in raisins.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake until golden brown.

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. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Clove + raisintop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,070 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter together as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic and moist batter to help it rise and aids browning.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the boiling water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it goes into the batter so it is evenly distributed. Unevenly mixed baking soda can leave pockets that are bitter or soapy and uneven rising.

Swap the raisin

The recipe marks raisin as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, cinnamon, ginger, clove):

  1. Orangefits better
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Quincefits about as well
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cinnamon, ginger, clove. 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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