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Bread

Maple Ginger Bread

A sweet bread made with maple syrup, ginger, and butter.

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 ↓

Maple Ginger Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter in a mixing bowl.

  2. Add the maple syrup and mix well.

  3. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and ginger.

  4. Add the dry ingredients and water alternately to the butter mixture, beating constantly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased baking pans or muffin tins.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until firm: 25-30 minutes for baking pans, 20-25 minutes for muffin tins.

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. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + maple syruptop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,084 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Maple syrup + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together254 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Maple syrup + flourtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,034 recipes

    Shared aroma: eugenol (clove, spicy).

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

Flour
Forms the structure that sets the crumb as the batter bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the bread rises and turns light.
Maple syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture, and browning as the bread bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.

The step that matters

Alternating dry ingredients and water into the butter mixture. Adding the flour mixture and water in turns, while beating, keeps the batter smooth and well combined. Overbeating once flour is fully mixed in can develop gluten and make the bread tough.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, maple syrup, 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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