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Dessert

Plain Ginger Bread

A moist gingerbread loaf made with treacle, butter, flour, spices, eggs, sugar, buttermilk, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and allspice 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 ↓

Plain Ginger Bread

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Heat the treacle and butter in a pot until melted.

  2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, allspice, and caraway seeds.

  3. In another bowl, beat the eggs with the sugar, then add the buttermilk.

  4. Combine the melted treacle and butter with the egg mixture.

  5. Mix the wet mixture with the dry ingredients.

Bake

  1. Line four tin hoops with paper and divide the batter evenly among them.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C) until cooked through.

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. Cinnamon + allspicetop 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. Cinnamon + carawaytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together188 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 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

Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark color, and a moist, sticky crumb.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb during baking.
Buttermilk
Adds moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda to lift the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic buttermilk to produce gas that makes the cake rise.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Mix the wet mixture with the dry ingredients. Once the acidic buttermilk meets the baking soda the rising reaction starts, so the batter should be combined and put into the oven promptly. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the crumb tough.

Swap the caraway

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Carawaythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, egg, sugar. 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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