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Dessert

Cocoa-nut Gingerbread

A gingerbread cookie made with flour, rice, lemon rind, ginger, treacle, butter, sugar, and grated cocoa-nut.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Cocoa-nut Gingerbread

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Mix together the flour, ground rice, lemon rind, and ginger.

  2. Pour nearly boiling treacle, melted butter, and sugar over the dry ingredients.

  3. Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon until smooth and let it cool completely.

  4. Once cool, add the grated cocoa-nut and blend thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Drop small heaps of the mixture onto a buttered baking tin.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for 30 to 45 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.

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. Lemon + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

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

  2. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Rice + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,366 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  4. Rice + cocoatop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together93 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Fine wheaten flour
Provides the main structure that holds the gingerbread together.
Ground rice
Adds a slightly crisp, crumbly texture to the dough.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, dark colour, and moisture while helping the gingerbread stay soft.
Fresh butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender crumb.
Grated cocoa-nut
Adds flavour, texture, and moisture to the finished cakes.

The step that matters

Cool the mixture completely before adding the cocoa-nut. Adding coconut to a hot mixture can make it greasy and uneven, and the batter needs to cool so the texture sets evenly before baking.

Swap the cocoa

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Milletfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Cocoathe original

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