Skip to main content
Dessert

Spice Gingerbread

A loaf of gingerbread made with flour, butter, molasses, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Spice Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a large bowl, rub the butter into the flour.

Make the batter

  1. Mix in the baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and salt.

  2. Add the molasses and boiling water, then beat the mixture well.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan and bake slowly until done.

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. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + macetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Cinnamon + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add tenderness and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Baking powder
Adds additional lift so the loaf rises as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, moisture, and its characteristic flavor.

The step that matters

Bake slowly until done. A low oven temperature cooks the loaf gently so the center sets without the outside over-browning or drying. Doneness should be checked by a toothpick or thermometer rather than time alone, since the batter is dense and moist.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, egg, butter, cinnamon, clove, molasses. 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

Molasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipesClove CakeClove Cake53 recipes