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Dessert

Hot Gingerbread and Wafers

A gingerbread batter baked into cakes and thin wafers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour 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 ↓

Hot Gingerbread and Wafers

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the butter, molasses, cold water with dissolved baking soda, and ground ginger until smooth.

  2. Add the sifted flour and salt, stirring until well combined.

  3. Pour half of the batter into a very shallow pan.

Bake and crisp

  1. Bake the batter in a hot oven (400°F / 200°C) until done.

  2. For the wafers, drop half teaspoonfuls of the remaining batter two inches apart on lightly buttered inverted tins.

  3. Bake the wafers in a quick oven (400°F / 200°C).

  4. If the wafers become soft, place them in a hot oven for a few minutes to crisp them up again.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + gingertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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 richness and tenderness, and helps the batter stay soft and spreadable.
New orleans molasses
Provides deep sweetness, dark colour and the characteristic gingerbread flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to lighten the batter and help it spread.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.

The step that matters

Baking the wafers. The batter is thin and spread in small drops, so it can burn quickly at high heat. Watch closely for browning, and crisp any softened wafers again in a hot oven, since moisture softens them as they cool.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

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