Name: Molasses Gingerbread
Ingredients: 1 pint molasses; 1 cup melted butter; 1 tablespoon ginger; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; a little nutmeg; a little clove; 1 cup cold water; enough flour to make it stiff; 1 teaspoon baking soda

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 ↓

Molasses Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Stir the baking soda into the molasses.
Beat the mixture hard until it foams high.
Add the melted butter, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and enough flour to make a stiff batter.
Finally, add the cold water and mix well.

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.

Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

Swap the ginger

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

Allspicefits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerthe original
Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.