Skip to main content
Dessert

Gingerbread-nuts

A sweet biscuit made with flour, treacle, butter, sugar, candied peel, ginger, coriander, caraway, and carbonate of ammonia.

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

Why it works: Ginger and coriander match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Gingerbread-nuts

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Mix the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, treacle, butter, sugar, candied peel, ground ginger, coriander, and caraway seeds until well combined.

  2. Just before baking, stir in the carbonate of ammonia. For a lighter texture, you may use 5 oz. instead.

Shape and bake

  1. Preheat your oven to 350 °F (175 °C).

  2. Shape the mixture into small nuts and place them on a baking sheet.

  3. Bake for about 20 minutes or until golden brown.

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

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

  2. Coriander + carawaytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together185 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Ginger + carawaytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the shaped nuts together.
Treacle (molasses)
Adds moisture, dark color, and deep sweetness with a rich flavor.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spice aroma.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the nuts brown in the oven.
Carbonate of ammonia
Releases gas as it heats, helping the nuts rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Stir in the carbonate of ammonia just before baking. Carbonate of ammonia releases gas when heated. If it sits in the dough too long, the gas escapes before baking and the nuts lose lift and become denser.

Swap the coriander

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

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

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