Name: Mother's Hard Ginger Bread
Ingredients: ½ cup brown sugar; ½ cup butter; 1½ cups molasses; 1 tablespoon ginger; 2 teaspoons baking soda; ¼ teaspoon salt; flour (enough to roll out)

Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Mother's Hard Ginger Bread

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.

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a mixing bowl, combine the brown sugar and ginger.
Add the molasses and mix well.
Dissolve the baking soda in a small amount of water and add it to the mixture.
Melt the butter and add it along with enough boiling water to the mixture.
Gradually mix in flour until the dough is smooth and easy to roll out.
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Place on large flat pans and mark off into cards.

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.

Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,116 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,564 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Swap the ginger

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

Cinnamonfits better
Nutmegfits better
Jalapenofits better
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ginger Cookies213 recipes

Molasses Cookies96 recipes

Ginger Cake93 recipes

Molasses Cake90 recipes

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Mother's Hard Ginger Bread