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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

A moist gingerbread loaf made with butter, molasses, sugar, spices, eggs, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soft 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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, molasses, and spices until light.

  3. Warm the mixture slightly on the stove.

  4. Beat the eggs until light and add them to the warmed mixture along with the sour milk.

  5. Dissolve the baking soda in a little boiling water and add it to the mixture.

  6. Gradually add the flour until the batter is thick, similar to cupcake batter.

  7. If using, dredge the raisins in flour and fold them into the batter.

  8. Beat the batter vigorously for 10 minutes.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a loaf pan or small tins and bake immediately.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the crumb a tender texture.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and deep sweetness to the gingerbread.
Eggs
Add structure and binding so the batter holds its shape as it bakes.
Sour milk or buttermilk
Adds acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in the sour milk to produce gas that leavens the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that sets the batter as it bakes.

The step that matters

Pour and bake immediately. Baking soda reacts with the acidic sour milk as soon as it is mixed, releasing gas. Delaying the bake lets that gas escape, so the gingerbread may rise poorly and turn out dense.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, sugar, milk, 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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