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Dessert

Soft Ginger Bread

A moist gingerbread loaf made with butter, flour, sugar, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Soft Ginger Bread

Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soft 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 the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the slightly beaten egg and mix well.

  3. Sift the dry ingredients together.

  4. Mix the dry ingredients alternately with the liquids until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into an oiled pan.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to lift the batter and help it rise.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour, and a deep sweet, tangy flavour.
Sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps brown the crust while tenderising the crumb.

The step that matters

Mix the dry ingredients alternately with the liquids until smooth. Alternating additions and mixing only until smooth keeps the batter from overdeveloping gluten, which would make the gingerbread tough. Overmixing after the flour goes in is the usual mistake.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, sugar, egg, cinnamon, milk, molasses. 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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