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Dessert

Ginger Bread

A sweet, spiced loaf made with sugar, butter, eggs, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the sugar and butter.

  2. Add the beaten eggs, molasses, sour milk, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and allspice; mix well.

  3. Gradually add the flour until fully combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into paper-lined molds or tins.

  2. Bake until done, then ice with plain icing or dust with powdered sugar if served hot.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure to the baked crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk and molasses to produce gas, helping the gingerbread rise.
Flour
Provides the main structure of the batter as it sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and flavor typical of gingerbread.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness.

The step that matters

Gradually add the flour until fully combined. Adding flour gradually and mixing only until combined keeps the batter smooth and lumps out. Overworking flour develops gluten, which can make the crumb tough and dense.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, molasses, milk, cinnamon, allspice):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, molasses, milk, cinnamon, allspice. 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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