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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

A moist gingerbread made with flour, molasses, butter, buttermilk, thick cream, eggs, ginger, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Soft Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine flour, molasses, butter, thick cream, eggs, and ground ginger.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in buttermilk, then add it to the mixture.

  3. Mix all ingredients until well combined.

Bake

  1. Bake immediately in a preheated oven.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Buttermilk + creamtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together674 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + buttermilktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together526 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture, giving the gingerbread its flavor and softness.
Butter
Adds fat, which tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Buttermilk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda and adds moisture to the batter.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set its structure in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk's acid to release gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Bake immediately in a preheated oven.. Baking soda starts releasing gas as soon as it meets the acidic buttermilk. Baking the batter right away keeps that gas trapped in the batter, so the gingerbread rises well and stays light.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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