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Dessert

Gentleman's Gingerbread

A gingerbread cake made with butter, sugar, egg yolks, brandy, wine, lemon, spices, ginger, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Gentleman's Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar until very light.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks, brandy, wine, lemon juice, lemon rind, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger; mix well.

  3. Stir in the flour and beat the mixture thoroughly.

  4. Spread the batter very thin on buttered pans.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven and cut into squares while warm.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

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

  3. Lemon + cinnamontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,950 recipes

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

  4. Brandy + winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,427 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, 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
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cake a tender, rich crumb.
Egg yolks
Add richness and emulsify the batter, giving structure and a tender set.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin batter together as it bakes.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps create a light texture when beaten with butter.
Brandy
Adds aroma and flavour that carries the spices through the batter.

The step that matters

Spreading the batter very thin. A thin layer bakes quickly and evenly through to the edges. A thick layer may stay raw in the centre or dry out at the edges before it sets.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, brandy, wine, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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