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Dessert

Hard Ginger-bread

A dense gingerbread cake made with flour, sugar, butter, ginger, eggs, molasses, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Hard Ginger-bread

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.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, butter, ginger, and baking soda.

  3. Add the eggs and mix until well combined.

  4. If desired, add seeds to the mixture.

  5. In a separate bowl, combine molasses with milk or water to adjust thickness.

  6. Stir in the dissolved baking soda, butter, ginger, and salt.

  7. Combine both mixtures and add enough flour to roll out the dough.

Bake

  1. Divide the dough into two cakes and bake for about 20 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms the structure of the dough so it can be rolled out and hold its shape.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and add richness and structure to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, and gives gingerbread its characteristic flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in molasses to produce gas, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and flavor in the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning and moisture in the baked cake.

The step that matters

Adding the dissolved baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it is stirred in, so it spreads evenly through the dough. Unevenly distributed soda can leave bitter, soapy patches and uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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