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Dessert

Wholemeal Ginger Cake

A ginger cake made with wholemeal flour, candied peel, ginger, baking soda, salt, fat, golden syrup, Demerara sugar, milk, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Syrup and sugar match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Wholemeal 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix the flour, candied peel, ground ginger, and salt.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the fat, Demerara sugar, and golden syrup. Heat until dissolved.

  3. Add the melted mixture to the dry ingredients and mix well.

  4. Warm the milk, dissolve the baking soda in it, and add the beaten egg. Mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased shallow tin. Bake for one hour.

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. Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Allinson wholemeal flour
Forms the structure of the cake and gives it its wholemeal texture and nutty flavour.
Golden syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark, sticky texture to the crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the warm milk and syrup to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Fat
Adds richness and tenderness, keeping the crumb soft and moist.
Ground ginger
Provides the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the warm milk. Baking soda needs moisture and an acid to release carbon dioxide. Dissolving it fully in the milk before adding the egg spreads it evenly, so the cake rises uniformly instead of forming dense or patchy pockets.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, syrup, sugar, milk, egg. 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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