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Dessert

Everlasting Gingerbread

A gingerbread made with cornmeal, molasses, and ginger, baked as a sheet or drop cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Everlasting Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Scald cornmeal in water with added salt until the mixture leaves the pan.

  2. Remove from heat and gradually add molasses while beating constantly to avoid lumps.

  3. Add shortening and let cool.

  4. Once cool, add a well-beaten egg, dissolved baking soda in vinegar, and flour.

Bake

  1. Bake in a sheet or as drop 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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Vinegar + gingertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,126 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Vinegar + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,253 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

Cornmeal
Forms the bulk of the batter and gives the cake a coarse, tender structure.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar to release carbon dioxide, which helps the cake rise.
Flour
Its proteins and starch add structure that helps the cake set.
Shortening
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Adding molasses to the hot cornmeal. Molasses must go in gradually while beating constantly, because adding it all at once to the hot mixture can form lumps that are hard to smooth out later.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, flour, 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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