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Dessert

A Gingerbread Cake

A gingerbread cake made with flour, treacle, sugar, butter, eggs, ginger, caraway, coriander, citrus peel, brandy, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Coriander and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,498 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Gingerbread Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, combine the flour, treacle, sugar, melted butter, and eggs. Beat well.

  2. Add the ginger, caraway seeds, coriander seeds, lemon peel, orange peel, brandy, and salt. Mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into two small cake pans.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through, similar to other cakes.

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. Coriander + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,498 recipes

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

  2. Ginger + coriandertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  4. Caraway + coriandertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-decenal (green, must).

  5. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tender crumb and moisture.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark color to the cake.
Lisbon sugar
Sweetens the batter and helps the cake brown in the oven.
Fine powdered ginger
Gives the cake its characteristic warm, spicy aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. The batter is rich with eggs, butter and sugar, so it can look set on top while the center is still wet. Baking until fully set, not just until the surface firms, ensures a stable crumb that does not sink as it cools.

Swap the coriander

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, sugar, butter, egg, ginger, caraway, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, butter, egg, ginger, caraway, lemon. 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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