Skip to main content
Dessert

Crisp Ginger-bread

A quick gingerbread cake made with butter, sugar, ginger, cayenne pepper, molasses, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Crisp Ginger-bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Cream together the butter and sugar until smooth.

  2. Add the ginger and cayenne pepper, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the molasses and enough flour to form a dough that can be rolled out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and cut it into small cakes.

  2. Bake the cakes in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°C) 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. Ginger + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 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. Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Adds fat that gives the cakes a tender, short texture.
Sugar
Creams with the butter and adds sweetness, and browns during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color, and helps the cakes brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that lets the dough be rolled out and cut.
Ground ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines the gingerbread.

The step that matters

Bake until golden, not longer. Sugar and molasses brown quickly and can scorch once the cakes get dark. Overbaking also makes them hard and bitter, so watch for golden color rather than relying only on the clock.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, pepper, molasses, 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