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Dessert

Gingerbread Puddings

A steamed dessert made with molasses, brown sugar, butter, flour, spices, and eggs.

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 ↓

Gingerbread Puddings

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the batter

  1. Beat the butter and brown sugar together until creamy.

  2. Add the beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in warm water and mix it with the molasses before adding.

  4. Sift in the flour and spices, then mix until combined.

Cook

  1. Steam the mixture for 2 hours.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  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
Provides dark color, rich flavor and moisture, and sweetness.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the butter cream into a soft base.
Butter
Adds fat, giving richness and a tender crumb.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to produce gas, helping the pudding rise.
Flour
Forms the structure that sets the pudding as it cooks.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in warm water and mix it with the molasses before adding. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed in the wet ingredients so it reacts with the acid in the molasses and sour cream. Uneven distribution leaves pockets of bitter soda and uneven rise.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, cream, sugar, butter, flour, egg, 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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