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Dessert

Richer Gingerbread Nuts

A sweet, spiced gingerbread dough shaped into nuts, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Richer Gingerbread Nuts

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.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter in a large bowl.

  2. Add the egg yolks, spices, and brandy and mix well.

  3. Gradually add the flour and sugar, mixing until combined.

  4. Stir in the hot treacle; if the mixture is too sticky, add a little more flour.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough thinly on a floured surface.

  2. Cut into squares and bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until firm.

  3. Once baked, brush the tops with clarified 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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Coriander + allspicetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

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

  4. Caraway + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the dough together as it bakes.
Treacle (or molasses)
Adds moisture, deep sweetness and color to the dough.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the nuts brown and crisp as they bake.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and rich flavor in the dough.
Ground ginger
Gives the characteristic warm, spicy flavor of gingerbread.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the dough together.

The step that matters

Stir in the hot treacle. Hot treacle is thick and sticky, so the dough can become overly soft. Adding flour gradually until it is workable keeps the dough firm enough to roll thinly and cut cleanly.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, molasses, sugar, butter, ginger, caraway, allspice. 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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