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Bread

Rich Gingerbread

A dense gingerbread made with flour, ground rice, cornflour, butter, brown sugar, golden syrup, crystallized ginger, candied peel, spices, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Rich Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slack oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Sift the flour, cornflour, and ground rice into a bowl.

  2. Melt the butter, brown sugar, and golden syrup together, then stir into the flour mixture.

  3. Sift the baking soda and spices together, then mix them in with the crystallized ginger and candied peel.

  4. Beat the eggs well and quickly stir them into the other ingredients.

Bake

  1. Bake immediately in a lined and greased tin at 350°F (175°C) for about 1½ hours.

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 + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Rice + orangetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a soft, sticky texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic syrup and sugar to lift the batter as it bakes.

The step that matters

Bake immediately after adding the eggs. Once the eggs are mixed in, the baking soda starts to release gas and the batter begins to lose its lift, so waiting can leave the gingerbread flatter and denser.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Orangethe original

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