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Dessert

Drop Ginger Cake

A sweet ginger cake made with molasses, brown sugar, butter, lard, flour, baking soda, boiling water, ginger, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Drop 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. 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

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix molasses, brown sugar, and butter and lard mixture.

  2. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water and add to mixture.

  3. Stir in flour, ground ginger, and ground cloves until well combined.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of batter onto greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 15-20 minutes or 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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture and the dark colour characteristic of ginger cake.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they set in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to release gas, helping the cakes rise and lighten.
Butter and lard mixed
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Ground ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolve baking soda in boiling water. Baking soda must be fully dissolved before it meets the molasses, otherwise it will not react evenly and may leave pockets of bitter, unevenly risen cake.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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