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Dessert

Gingerbread Without Butter

A sweet gingerbread made with treacle, citrus, candied ginger, spices, and flour, baked without butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Gingerbread Without Butter

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 dough

  1. Mix the treacle with the sliced orange, lemon, citron, and candied ginger.

  2. Add the coriander seeds, caraway seeds, and ground ginger.

  3. Incorporate enough flour to form a soft paste.

Bake and store

  1. Shape the mixture into cakes or place it in tin plates.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until done.

  3. Store in a covered earthen vessel to keep it dry.

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. Lemon + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

  2. Orange + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Orange + gingertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 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

Treacle
Provides sweetness, moisture and deep flavour, and helps bind the paste.
Flour
Forms the soft paste that gives the gingerbread its body when baked.
Candied ginger
Adds sweet, spicy pieces and aroma throughout the bake.
Ground ginger
Contributes warm, spicy aroma and flavour to the dough.

The step that matters

Baking until done. Treacle and sugars darken quickly, so the cakes can scorch on the outside before the centre sets. Judge doneness by a firm, dry surface and a centre that holds together rather than by colour alone.

Swap the orange

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lemon, ginger, coriander, caraway, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Orangethe original
  3. Avocadofits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against lemon, ginger, coriander, caraway, 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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