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Dessert

English Ginger-bread

A moist gingerbread cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, spices, and leavening agents.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

English Ginger-bread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Cream the butter in a large bowl.

  3. Gradually add the brown sugar while continuing to beat.

  4. Add the lemon juice and rind, then the beaten eggs, and mix thoroughly.

  5. In a separate bowl, stir the baking soda into the sour cream or milk.

  6. Add the molasses and sour cream mixture to the butter mixture and mix well.

  7. Gradually stir in the flour, baking powder, ginger, and cinnamon until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into two cake pans.

  2. Bake for one hour.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown and stay soft.
Molasses
Adds dark color, deep flavor, and moisture to the cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cake sets in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets as the cake bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream or molasses to lift and lighten the cake.

The step that matters

Stirring the baking soda into the sour cream or milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and produce gas for rise. Dissolving it in the sour cream before adding it to the batter spreads the reaction evenly, so the cake rises well without uneven pockets or a soapy taste.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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