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Dessert

Gingerbread Loaf

A sweet loaf made with butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, sour cream, eggs, flour, baking soda, and currants or raisins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Gingerbread Loaf

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 Loaf

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

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together until light.

  2. Beat in the molasses, ginger, and cinnamon.

  3. Warm the mixture slightly and whip in the sour cream.

  4. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  5. Alternately mix in the flour and the frothed egg whites, along with the baking soda.

  6. Beat the batter from the bottom for five minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour into a greased mold with a funnel in the middle.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done, taking care not to burn.

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.

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.

  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
Creamed with sugar to trap air, giving the loaf a tender, rich crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the loaf and helps the creaming hold air for a lighter texture.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the loaf.
Eggs
Bind the batter and, with the whipped whites, add structure and lift.
Flour
Forms the structure of the loaf as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to make the loaf rise.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites with the flour. Frothed whites hold air that gives lift. Mixing too vigorously deflates them, which leaves the loaf dense. Alternating flour and whites gently keeps the batter light.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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