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Dessert

Baker's Hard Gingerbread

A sweet, spiced gingerbread dough baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg 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 ↓

Baker's Hard Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix together sugar, melted lard, water, vinegar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger until well combined.

  2. Knead the mixture until it is soft enough to be rolled out.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough and place it into a dripping pan, marking it off with a knife.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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 + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Nutmeg + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the gingerbread brown as it bakes.
Melted lard
Provides fat that gives the dough tenderness and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to produce gas that helps the dough rise.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that activates the baking soda for lift.
Cinnamon
Contributes warm spice aroma to the gingerbread.

The step that matters

Knead until soft enough to roll out. Kneading only until the dough is pliable keeps it from becoming tough, since overworking develops gluten and makes the baked gingerbread dense and hard.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, vinegar, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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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