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Sugar Gingerbread

A sweet gingerbread dough made with butter, sugar, eggs, sour cream, ginger, cinnamon, flour, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Sugar 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 dough

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and sour cream, mixing well.

  3. Stir in the ginger and cinnamon.

  4. Gradually work in the flour mixed with baking soda to form a soft dough.

Bake and finish

  1. Bake in two large greased pans at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Brush the tops with egg white while hot.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, creaming with sugar traps air for a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown and stay soft as it bakes.
Eggs
Egg yolks add richness and help bind the dough together.
Sour cream or buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that works with the baking soda.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic dairy to lift the dough and help it rise.

The step that matters

Gradually work in the flour mixed with baking soda. Adding flour slowly and mixing gently keeps the dough soft and tender. Overworking develops gluten, which makes the gingerbread tough and dense.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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