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Dessert

Normandy Spice Cake or Gingerbread

A spice cake made with molasses, butter, ginger, allspice, anise, coriander, lemon rind, flour, and dried fruits, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Normandy Spice Cake or Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a saucepan, warm the molasses.

  2. Add the butter, ginger, allspice, anise, coriander, and lemon rind.

  3. Mix in enough flour to form a dough.

  4. Let it rise in a cool place.

  5. Fold in the chopped cherries, citron, and currants or candied peel.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough to 1 inch thick.

  2. Cut into rounds or squares.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  4. Ice the cake if desired.

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. Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

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

  4. Allspice + anisetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Anise + coriandertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together86 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides dark sweetness, moisture and the characteristic gingerbread colour and flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich mouthfeel in the dough.
Flour
Forms the dough structure that holds the spices and fruit together.
Powdered ginger
Supplies the warm, pungent spice that defines the gingerbread aroma.
Allspice
Adds a clove-like warm aroma that deepens the spice blend.
Currants or candied peel
Adds chewy pockets of fruit sweetness and acidity throughout the dough.

The step that matters

Let it rise in a cool place. Rising depends on yeast or chemical leaveners acting slowly; cool conditions give a controlled, even rise rather than a fast, uneven one, and the dough's structure needs time to develop before shaping.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (molasses, butter, ginger, allspice, anise, coriander, flour):

  1. Limefits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Orangefits about as well
  4. Raisinfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, butter, ginger, allspice, anise, coriander, flour. 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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