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Another Receipt for Cocoa-nut Gingerbread

A gingerbread cookie made with flour, rice, cocoa-nut, and treacle.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Another Receipt for Cocoa-nut Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour and ground rice together in a bowl.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the treacle, butter, and sugar, and heat until melted.

  3. Pour the hot mixture over the flour and rice mixture and stir until combined.

  4. Allow the paste to cool, then add the grated cocoa-nut and mix well.

  5. If desired, fold in the candied orange or lemon rind.

Bake

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased baking pan and smooth the top.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) until firm.

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. Lemon + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

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 gingerbread together as it sets.
Ground rice
Adds a fine, slightly crumbly texture and helps the crumb set firm.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark colour, moisture and the characteristic gingerbread flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for richness, tenderness and a moist crumb.
Grated cocoa-nut
Adds moisture, chewiness and a coconut flavour to the finished cake.

The step that matters

Let the paste cool before adding the cocoa-nut. Adding the coconut to a very hot mixture can lose its fresh flavour and make the batter greasy, while a cooled paste mixes evenly and bakes into a uniform texture.

Swap the lemon

The recipe marks lemon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, rice, ginger, butter, sugar, cocoa, orange):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Coconutfits about as well
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, rice, ginger, butter, sugar, cocoa, orange. 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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