Name: Cheese Gingerbread
Ingredients: 1 cup soft cheese; 1 cup molasses; 2 cups all-purpose flour; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 1 teaspoon ground ginger; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ cup butter (or other fat)

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 ↓

Cheese 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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the dough

In a bowl, mix the soft cheese and molasses until smooth.
In another bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and salt.
Gradually add the dry ingredients to the cheese mixture, mixing well.
Incorporate the butter until the dough is smooth.

Bake

Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.
Bake for 30-35 minutes or 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.

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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together7,962 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,928 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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

Soft cheese: Provides moisture and a tender, rich crumb in the batter.
Molasses: Adds sweetness, moisture and the characteristic dark color and flavor of gingerbread.
All-purpose flour: Forms the main structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts and lightens the batter.
Butter: Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the finished cake.

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Clovefits better
Allspicefits about as well
Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, molasses, flour, cinnamon, butter. 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.