Name: Corsican Gingerbread
Ingredients: 2 pounds flour; 1½ pounds sugar; 1 pound butter; 9 eggs; ⅓ cup wine; ⅓ cup rose water; a little ginger

Why it works: Flour and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Corsican Gingerbread

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

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.
Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
Stir in the wine, rose water, and ginger.
Gradually add the flour, mixing until well combined.

Bake

Spread the mixture onto baking sheets using a knife.
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.

Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + winetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,645 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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: Forms the structure that holds the gingerbread together as it bakes.
Butter: Adds richness and tenderness by coating flour and carrying fat-based flavour.
Sugar: Creamed with butter to add sweetness and help browning in the oven.
Eggs: Bind the batter and add structure and moisture as they set.
Wine: Adds moisture and acidity that contribute to the batter's flavour.
Rose water: Contributes a floral aroma to the finished gingerbread.

Swap the ginger

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Tarragonfits about as well
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, wine, rose. 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.