Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Golden 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.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Make the batter
In a bowl, cream together the sugar and butter.
Add the eggs and milk, mixing well.
In another bowl, combine the flour, ginger, and baking powder.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until smooth.
Spread the batter in a greased pan, about an inch thick.
Bake and finish
Bake until golden, then sprinkle with powdered sugar as it comes out of the oven.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
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Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked 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
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Provides the starch and structure that hold the cake's crumb together.
- Eggs
- Add structure and help bind the batter while adding richness.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and flavor, and creaming it with sugar traps air for lift.
- Sugar
- Sweetens the cake and helps brown the crust as it bakes.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas during baking, helping the cake rise and become light.
The step that matters
Adding the dry ingredients to the wet mixture. Adding flour gradually and stirring only until smooth keeps the batter from becoming overworked. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cake tough and dense.
Swap the ginger
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegfits better
- Jalapenofits better
- Gingerthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, egg, milk, flour. 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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