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Dessert

Ye Ancient Gingerbread

A sweet dough made with sorghum molasses, buttermilk, lard, eggs, spices, and flour, baked into gingerbread shapes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,536 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ye Ancient 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.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the lard and molasses together.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Sift the baking soda, spices, and salt with about 1 cup of flour, then add to the mixture alternately with the buttermilk, beating well.

  4. Continue adding flour until a soft dough forms.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to a thick consistency and cut into desired shapes, such as gingerbread men.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done, ensuring not to bake too quickly.

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. Allspice + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,536 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sorghum + cinnamontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  5. Sorghum + flourtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together99 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

Sorghum molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color that browns the gingerbread.
Leaf lard
Provides fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spice flavor.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness to the baked crumb.
Buttermilk
Adds acidity that reacts with baking soda to lift and soften the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acid to produce gas that helps the gingerbread rise.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together once it is soft and shapeable.

The step that matters

Bake until done, not too quickly. Baking too fast at high heat can brown the outside before the center sets, leaving the gingerbread underbaked inside. A moderate oven lets heat reach the middle, so the structure sets evenly.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sorghum, molasses, buttermilk, allspice, cinnamon, egg, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sorghum, molasses, buttermilk, allspice, cinnamon, egg, 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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