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Dessert

Issaquenna Spiced Ginger Cake

A moist ginger cake made with molasses, sugar, eggs, spices, flour, and butter.

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

Issaquenna Spiced Ginger Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Make the batter

  1. Mix molasses and sugar together in a bowl.

  2. Add boiling water and baking soda, then mix well.

  3. Stir in the beaten eggs, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.

  4. Gradually add flour, mixing until a stiff batter forms.

  5. Fold in melted butter until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour batter into a greased baking pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) 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.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  2. Cinnamon + gingertop 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. 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
Provides dark color, rich sweetness, and moisture, and gives the cake its characteristic flavor.
Eggs
Bind the batter and help set the crumb structure as the cake bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once its proteins set during baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Melted butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour, mixing until a stiff batter forms. Once flour is wet, its gluten network develops with mixing. Overmixing makes the cake tough and dense, so mix only until the batter comes together.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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

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