Name: Indian Gingerbread
Ingredients: 12 ounces pounded loaf sugar; ¼ pound fresh butter; 1 pound dried flour; 2 ounces pounded ginger; ¼ ounce cloves; ¼ ounce cinnamon; ½ cup water

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 ↓

Indian 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 dough

Mix the ginger, cloves, and cinnamon with the flour.
In a saucepan, combine the sugar and water; heat until dissolved.
Add the butter to the saucepan and melt it.
Mix the melted butter with the flour and spices.

Shape and bake

Work the mixture into a paste and form it into cakes or nuts.
Bake on tins in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C).

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.

Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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

Flour: Provides the structure that holds the dough together once baked.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and helps bind the paste.
Loaf sugar: Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Ginger: Supplies the main warm, pungent aroma that defines the gingerbread.

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Allspicefits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, flour, clove, cinnamon. 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.