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Dessert

Molasses Drop Cake

A moist drop cake flavored with molasses, butter, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, baked in a preheated oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Molasses Drop Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix together the molasses, butter, hot water, and eggs.

  3. Add the baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and cloves, and stir until combined.

  4. Gradually add flour until the batter is as stiff as loaf cake.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto baking sheets.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark, rich flavour to the batter.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the finished cake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the cakes set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses' acidity to lift the cakes and help them brown.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the batter together into a stiff dough.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter is as stiff as loaf cake. Flour is added in stages so you can judge the consistency. Too much flour makes the cakes dense and dry, while too little leaves them flat and spreading on the sheet.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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