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Dessert

Hard Ginger Bread

A dense ginger bread made with molasses, sugar, hot water, shortening, ginger, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hard Ginger Bread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. In a large bowl, combine molasses, sugar, hot water, and shortening.

  2. Add ginger and baking soda, mixing well.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough out hard on a floured surface.

  2. Cut into desired shapes.

  3. Place on a baking sheet.

  4. Bake until firm.

Cool and store

  1. Allow to cool before storing in an airtight container.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Butter + gingertop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture and a deep, sweet flavor to the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown during baking.
Shortening
Provides fat that tenderizes the dough and gives it structure when cooled.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift and lighten the dough as it bakes.
Ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines this bread.

The step that matters

Bake until firm. Gingerbread dough is dense and sugar-rich, so it can look set while still soft inside. Baking until firm, then cooling fully, lets the sugars set into a crisp, hard texture; underbaking leaves it chewy and sticky.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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