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Dessert

Soft Ginger Bread

A moist ginger bread made with butter, molasses, brown sugar, eggs, ginger, spices, flour, baking powder, and white sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Soft Ginger Bread

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 ↓

Soft Ginger Bread

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. Melt the butter with the molasses in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Remove from heat and beat the egg yolks and brown sugar together until light and creamy.

  3. Stir the yolk mixture into the molasses and butter.

  4. Add the ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, flour, and baking powder, and mix well.

  5. Beat the egg whites with the white sugar until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the batter.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Molasses
Provides moisture, dark colour and a deep, sweet flavour.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb stay soft.
Eggs
Egg yolks enrich the batter, while whipped whites add lift and structure.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold air that gives lift. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, leaving a dense, flat cake, so fold gently until no white streaks remain.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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