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Dessert

Colonial Ginger Bread

A moist ginger bread made with molasses, butter, sugar, water, baking soda, walnuts, raisins, ginger, cinnamon, flour, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Colonial 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. In a mixing bowl, combine molasses, butter, and sugar.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and pour over the mixture. Stir well and let cool.

  3. Add walnuts, raisins, ginger, cinnamon, flour, and beaten eggs. Mix until combined and pour into a shallow pan.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until done and serve 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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Walnut + cinnamontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,147 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

New orleans molasses
Provides dark color, moisture, and a deep sweet flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses and hot water to lighten the batter and help it rise.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in boiling water. Baking soda needs moisture and the acid in the molasses to react and produce gas; dissolving it fully before adding keeps the rise even and avoids pale or bitter pockets in the crumb.

Swap the walnut

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Walnutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, sugar, raisin, ginger, cinnamon, 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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