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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

A moist gingerbread cake made with molasses, brown sugar, butter, sour milk, eggs, flour, ginger, cinnamon, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soft Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the molasses and mix well.

  3. Incorporate the eggs one at a time, beating thoroughly after each addition.

  4. Mix the baking soda into the sour milk and combine it with the mixture.

  5. Sift the flour and spices together, then add to the wet ingredients.

  6. Beat the mixture well until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour into a ginger cake tin and bake.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and the characteristic gingerbread flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and richness to the batter as they bind it.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk to produce gas that lightens the cake.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the cake as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps trap air when creamed with sugar.

The step that matters

Mix the baking soda into the sour milk and combine it with the mixture.. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Mixing it into the sour milk first lets the reaction start there, so the batter rises evenly rather than in pockets.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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