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Dessert

Montgomery Inn Soft Ginger Cake

A moist ginger cake made with molasses, dark brown sugar, sour milk, lard, butter, eggs, flour, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Montgomery Inn Soft Ginger Cake

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.

Make the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the dark brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, and lard and butter until well combined.

  3. Add the eggs and mix until smooth.

  4. Gradually stir in the flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake for about 30 minutes or 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  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

Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the cake.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar and sour milk to release gas, helping the cake rise.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderizes the crumb.
Lard and butter
Provide fat for tenderness and a moist, soft texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.

The step that matters

Stirring in the baking soda mixture. Baking soda reacts with the acid right away, so the batter should be mixed in promptly and baked without delay. Waiting lets the gas escape and reduces the lift in the finished cake.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, molasses, milk, butter, egg, flour, 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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