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Dessert

Soft Gingerbread

A moist gingerbread cake with mixed fruit, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Soft Gingerbread

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

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

  2. In a large bowl, beat together the flour, butter, and sugar until well combined.

  3. Add the molasses and sour cream.

  4. Mix in a little of the flour.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the egg yolks.

  2. Add the egg yolks along with more flour to the mixture.

  3. Stir in the ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda.

  4. Fold in the mixed fruit and the beaten egg whites.

  5. Add the remaining flour.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into well-greased tin pans.

  2. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

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 + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Yolks enrich the batter, and whites beaten and folded in add lift and a lighter crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and sour cream to produce gas that raises the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that helps the crumb stay soft.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and acidity, which tenderizes the crumb and activates the baking soda.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets the batter as it bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness, and creams with sugar to trap air.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air only when beaten to a foam; stirring them in vigorously deflates the batter. Fold gently with a spatula so the batter stays light and rises well in the oven.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, butter, sugar, molasses, cream, egg, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, sugar, molasses, cream, egg, cinnamon. 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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