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Dessert

Gentleman's Gingerbread

A gingerbread cake made with butter, sugar, egg yolks, brandy, wine, lemon, spices, 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 egg yolks and beat until light.

  3. Mix in the brandy, wine, lemon juice, lemon rind, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger.

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

Bake and serve

  1. Spread the batter very thin on buttered pans.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  3. 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 texture.
Sugar
Creams with the butter for lightness and adds sweetness and browning.
Egg yolks
Add richness, moisture, and structure that helps bind the batter.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the thin batter together as it bakes.
Ginger
Supplies the characteristic warm, spicy flavour of gingerbread.

The step that matters

Spread the batter very thin. A thin layer bakes quickly and evenly, so the cake sets and browns before drying out. A thick layer can stay gummy in the centre and burn at the edges.

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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