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Fruit Gingerbread

Fruit gingerbread is a sweet loaf made with citron, raisins, currants, cinnamon, brown sugar, molasses, shortening, eggs, sour milk, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Fruit Gingerbread

Why it works: Raisin and cinnamon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,390 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Fruit Gingerbread

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the chopped citron, raisins, currants, and cinnamon.

  2. In another bowl, combine the brown sugar, molasses, and shortening.

  3. Add the eggs and sour milk to the sugar mixture, then stir in the baking soda.

  4. Gradually mix in the flour, reserving 1 cup to coat the fruit.

  5. Fold the fruit mixture into the batter until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan and bake for about 45-50 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Raisin + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,180 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, creamy).

Cinnamon and sugar 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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the batter as its proteins set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the gingerbread.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown.

The step that matters

Coat the fruit with reserved flour before folding it in. Flour-coated fruit is less likely to sink to the bottom of the batter, so the fruit stays spread evenly through the baked gingerbread.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against raisin, cinnamon, sugar, molasses, butter, egg, 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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