Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
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.
Make the batter
Cream the butter, sugar, molasses, and cinnamon together.
Heat the mixture on the stove until lukewarm.
Add the buttermilk and beaten eggs, then stir in the dissolved baking soda.
Gradually add the flour to form a thick batter.
Beat the batter hard for five minutes, then fold in the floured raisins.
Bake
Pour the batter into small round tins and bake at 350°F (175°C) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together9,075 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,390 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
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Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,721 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together17,341 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together2,973 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
- Butter
- Adds fat that gives the gingerbread a tender, rich crumb.
- Molasses
- Provides moisture, deep flavour, and browning in the finished cake.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the batter and helps brown the crust as it bakes.
- Eggs
- Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
- Baking soda
- Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
- Flour
- Builds the structure that holds the batter together once baked.
The step that matters
Beat the batter hard for five minutes. Vigorous beating develops gluten in the flour, which gives the gingerbread its structure. Beating too little leaves a crumbly texture, while the baking soda reaction needs to be well mixed through the batter to rise evenly.
“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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