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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

A moist gingerbread loaf made with butter, molasses, sugar, flour, sour milk, eggs, baking soda, ginger, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soft Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter, sugar, and molasses.

  2. Add the sour milk and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in a little sour milk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Stir in the flour and spices until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a large loaf pan or two small loaf pans.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour for a large loaf or 30 minutes for small loaves.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas, making the loaf rise and turn soft.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and dark color, and helps keep the crumb tender.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, helping the batter set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the structure of the loaf as its proteins set during baking.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in a little sour milk. Baking soda must be dissolved evenly and mixed in promptly, because it reacts with acid immediately. Unevenly distributed soda can leave bitter pockets or uneven rising.

Swap the clove

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, sugar, flour, milk, egg, ginger. 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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