Name: Gingerbread— Dr. Colquhoun's Method
Ingredients: 1 lb flour; 1 oz tartaric acid; 1 lb molasses; 1 oz ground ginger; 1 lb raw sugar; 1 oz ground cinnamon; 2 oz butter; 1 oz ground nutmeg; 1 oz carbonate of magnesia

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Gingerbread— Dr. Colquhoun's Method

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

Mix the magnesia and flour thoroughly.
Add melted butter, molasses, and tartaric acid dissolved in a little water to the flour mixture all at once.
Knead into a consistent dough.
Set aside for 1 hour.
Bake immediately.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,324 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

Swap the ginger

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

Allspicefits better
Clovefits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, sugar, cinnamon, butter, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.