Skip to main content
Bread

White Ginger Bread

A moist, spiced bread made with milk, butter, eggs, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon, flour, and baking powder.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

White Ginger Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Melt the butter in the milk.

  2. Beat the yolks and sugar to a light cream.

  3. Stir the yolk cream into the milk and butter.

  4. Add the ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon.

  5. Stir in the flour and baking powder.

Fold and bake

  1. Beat the egg whites with 1 tablespoon sugar to a stiff foam.

  2. Fold the stiff foam into the batter.

  3. Pour the mixture into an iron baking pan.

  4. 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.

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 + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the batter, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake once baked.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the bread rises in the oven.
Milk
Supplies moisture that hydrates the flour and keeps the crumb soft.
White ginger
Provides the spicy aroma that defines the bread's flavour.

The step that matters

Fold the stiff foam into the batter. Whipped egg whites hold air that gives lift. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the foam and leaves a dense bread.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg, lemon, 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.

You might also like

CornbreadCornbread345 recipesBread PuddingBread Pudding336 recipesMilk Bread RollsMilk Bread Rolls242 recipesPotato BreadPotato Bread124 recipes