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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

A moist gingerbread cake made with molasses, butter, ginger, sour milk, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Soft Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix molasses, butter, and ginger until light golden brown.

  3. Add sour milk and baking soda dissolved in a little hot water.

  4. Gradually stir in flour until the batter reaches desired consistency.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a lined dripping pan.

  2. Bake slowly until a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Serve with cream for dessert.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color of the gingerbread.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk and molasses to release gas that lifts the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter into a cake-like crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and richer flavor.
Ginger
Contributes the warm, spicy aroma that defines gingerbread.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the flour. Flour gluten toughens the crumb when overworked, and too much flour makes the cake dense and dry. Add it slowly and stop once the batter reaches the desired consistency.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, milk, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, milk, 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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