Skip to main content
Dessert

German Gingerbread

A spiced gingerbread cake with almonds and peel, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

German Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Whisk the eggs and sugar over hot water until frothy.

  2. Cut the almonds in half and the peel into strips.

  3. Gently stir in all the dry ingredients.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the mixture into a well-lined cake tin.

  2. Decorate the top with almonds and peel.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) and sprinkle with icing sugar.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whisked to trap air, giving the cake lift and an airy crumb structure.
Flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the cake its structure.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the whisked eggs hold a stable foam.
Carbonate of soda
Releases gas in the batter, helping the cake rise and brown.
Sweet almonds
Add richness, texture and a nutty flavour to the cake.

The step that matters

Whisking the eggs and sugar until frothy. Whisking warm eggs with sugar traps air in the foam, which gives the cake its lift. If the foam is under-whisked, the batter stays dense. Stirring in the dry ingredients gently afterwards helps keep that air from collapsing.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cardamomfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, sugar, flour, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon, almond. 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesCinnamon RollsCinnamon Rolls71 recipes