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Dessert

Gingerbread Pudding

A baked gingerbread batter served with a boiled sugar syrup sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Gingerbread Pudding

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.

Make the cake

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

  2. Stir together the molasses, melted butter, and boiling water in a bowl.

  3. Add the ginger and cinnamon, then mix in the flour.

  4. Pour the batter into two bread tins and bake until done.

Make the sauce

  1. Combine sugar and water in a saucepan and boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg yolks and stir them into the boiling syrup.

  3. Place the saucepan in a larger pot of hot water until the mixture thickens.

  4. Add the butter and beaten egg whites, then stir in the vanilla.

  5. Stir for one more minute and serve.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Provides the dark color, rich flavor and moisture of the gingerbread.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to help the cake rise and lighten its texture.
Eggs
Thicken the sauce as they cook and add richness and body.
Butter
Adds fat for moisture and a rich, smooth texture in the cake and sauce.

The step that matters

Thickening the sauce over hot water. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the syrup is too hot or heated too fast. Gentle indirect heat in a hot water bath lets the eggs thicken the sauce smoothly.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, cinnamon, butter, flour, sugar, sauce, 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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