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Dessert

Drop Ginger Cakes

Drop Ginger Cakes are sweet cakes made with sugar, sweet milk, molasses, lard, butter, flour, eggs, ginger, raisins, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Drop Ginger Cakes

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

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix sugar, sweet milk, molasses, and lard and butter until combined.

  2. Add flour, eggs, ginger, and raisins; mix well.

  3. Dissolve baking soda in a little hot water and add to the mixture.

Bake and store leftovers

  1. Spoon the batter into gem pans.

  2. Bake until golden brown.

  3. Store any leftover batter in a cool place.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Ginger + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour 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

Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the cakes' structure as they bake.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and the dark color and flavor of the cakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in molasses to release gas that lifts the batter.
Lard and butter
Add fat that makes the cakes tender and rich.
Sweet milk
Adds moisture and helps the batter come together smoothly.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and evenly mixed into the batter so it reacts with the molasses acid throughout. Clumps leave pockets of bitter soda and uneven rising.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

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