Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger-bread

A moist ginger bread cake made with molasses, butter, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Ginger-bread

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger-bread

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. Beat the eggs in a bowl.

  3. Add molasses and melted butter to the eggs and mix well.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in boiling water and add to the mixture.

  5. Gradually add flour until you achieve a stiff batter.

  6. Stir in cloves, cinnamon, grated nutmeg, and ginger.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Clove + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark colour and moisture, and a deep flavour.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas, helping the cake rise and darken.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together as it bakes.
Ground ginger
Contributes the warm, spicy aroma that defines gingerbread.

The step that matters

Bake until a toothpick comes out clean. Baking soda reacts quickly once it meets the acidic molasses, so the batter must go into a hot oven promptly. Underbaking leaves wet, sunken centres, while overbaking dries the crumb, so a toothpick test confirms the structure has set.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Turmericfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, butter, flour, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg. 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.

More gingerbread recipes

Soft 197Cake 72Nuts 68Molasses 52Pudding 38Cookies 36 See all 364 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes