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Dessert

Soft Raisin Gingerbread

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger 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 Raisin 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).

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Beat in the molasses and spices until the mixture lightens in color.

  3. Add the eggs and whisk until light.

  4. Add the milk.

  5. Gradually mix in the flour and stir the batter well.

  6. Dredge the raisins in flour, fold them into the batter, and beat the mixture for two minutes.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into shallow pans or patty pans.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Serve warm with cheese.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

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

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

  5. Mace + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the batter cream and hold air.
Eggs
Provide structure and binding as the batter sets in the oven.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the gingerbread.
Sour cream or milk
Supplies moisture and, with the baking soda, helps the cake rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in molasses and sour cream to lift the batter and aid browning.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the gingerbread as its proteins set when baked.

The step that matters

Dredge the raisins in flour. Coating raisins in flour helps them stay suspended in the batter instead of sinking to the bottom during baking.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Clovefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, butter, molasses, cream, raisin, cinnamon, ginger. 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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