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Dessert

Chocolate Gingerbread

Chocolate gingerbread made with sour milk, molasses, ginger, chocolate, raisins, and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Chocolate Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA steady oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a steady oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Dissolve the baking soda in the water.

Make the batter

  1. Mix all ingredients in the order given, flouring the raisins well.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered and floured cake tin.

Bake

  1. Bake in a steady oven at 350°F (175°C) for 45 minutes.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Molasses + raisintop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,577 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + chocolatetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,128 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor typical of gingerbread.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the crumb as the batter bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking to lift the batter and give a lighter crumb.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Grated chocolate
Adds fat, richness and a deeper, slightly bitter flavor to the cake.

The step that matters

Flouring the raisins well. Coating the raisins in flour helps keep them suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom during baking.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, molasses, ginger, chocolate, flour, raisin):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, molasses, ginger, chocolate, flour, raisin. 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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