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Dessert

Sour Milk Ginger Bread

A moist gingerbread loaf made with sour milk, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Sour Milk 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

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

  2. Sift all the dry ingredients together two or three times.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the sour milk and molasses, then gradually add this mixture to the flour.

  2. Add the beaten egg and melted butter last.

  3. Pour the batter into a well-greased pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for 25 to 30 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. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  5. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark colour and moisture to the crumb.
Thick sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter and tenderise the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce carbon dioxide, causing the gingerbread to rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and rich flavour.
Ground ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines gingerbread.

The step that matters

Adding the sour milk and molasses to the flour. Gradually combining the wet mixture into the flour keeps the batter smooth and evenly mixed. The baking soda reacts with the sour milk's acid as soon as it is wet, so the batter should go into the pan and the oven without delay to keep the rise.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, clove, cinnamon, butter, 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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