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Dessert

Acton Gingerbread

A gingerbread cake made with eggs, treacle, brown sugar, flour, butter, ginger, cloves, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Acton Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the eggs to a light froth.

  2. Gradually add the treacle while continuing to beat lightly.

  3. In the same manner, add the brown sugar, flour, and warmed butter, mixing well after each addition.

  4. Once combined, add the ginger, ground cloves, and grated lemon rind.

Bake and serve

  1. Butter a shallow square tin pan thoroughly.

  2. Bake the gingerbread in a gentle oven at 300°F (150°C) for nearly an hour.

  3. Let it cool slightly before turning it out, and support it on its edge until completely cool.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,150 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Whisked to a froth, they trap air and give the gingerbread structure as they set.
Treacle
Adds moisture, sweetness and deep flavour, and keeps the crumb tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the gingerbread together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich, tender texture and carries flavour through the crumb.
Pale brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture and helps the crumb brown during baking.

The step that matters

Adding the warmed butter and flour in turn. Mixing well after each addition keeps the batter smooth and evenly emulsified, so the gingerbread bakes with an even texture rather than a greasy or streaky crumb.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Clovethe original

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