Skip to main content
Dessert

Alum Gingerbread

A gingerbread dough made with molasses, lard, ginger, salt, alum, baking soda, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Alum Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the dough

  1. Combine molasses, melted lard, ginger, and coarse sea salt in a bowl.

  2. Dissolve pulverized alum in half of the boiling water.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in the other half of the boiling water.

  4. Add both mixtures to the bowl and stir in enough flour to form a kneadable dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to about ½ inch thick and cut into oblong cards.

  2. Bake in a moderately quick oven at 400°F (200°C) until done.

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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark colour, and moisture to the dough.
Lard
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lightens the dough as it bakes.
Alum
Acts as a leavening and firming agent, reacting with the other mixtures to help the cards rise and set.

The step that matters

Dissolving the alum and baking soda separately. Alum and baking soda are each dissolved in their own portion of boiling water so they do not react prematurely in the dry mix. Keeping them apart lets each dissolve fully, so the leavening is evenly distributed through the dough during baking.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes