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Dessert

Spiced Ginger-bread

A gingerbread loaf made with flour, brown sugar, ginger, cloves, butter, molasses, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Spiced 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.

Mix the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, ginger, and cloves.

  2. Melt the butter in the molasses over low heat.

  3. Pour the hot molasses mixture over the dry ingredients and stir to prevent lumps.

  4. Let the mixture cool completely.

  5. Beat the eggs until light and fluffy.

  6. Stir the beaten eggs into the cooled mixture.

  7. Add enough flour to form a stiff dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough into thin 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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + molassestop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the stiff dough together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness and depth of flavor, and helps the cakes brown.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich texture in the baked cakes.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the cakes.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown and stay soft.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool completely. Adding beaten eggs to hot molasses can scramble them and cause uneven texture. Cooling the mixture first keeps the eggs smooth and blends them evenly into the dough.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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