Skip to main content
Dessert

Scrap Cake

A cake made from scrap cake trimmings, molasses, sweet milk, and spices, baked into a medium stiff dough.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Scrap Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Combine the scrap cake trimmings, molasses, sweet milk, baking soda, butter, ground ginger, ground allspice, and currants in a large bowl.

  2. Add enough flour to form a medium stiff dough.

Bake and ice

  1. Spread the mixture about ½ inch thick in a well-greased pan.

  2. Bake in a cool oven at 300°F (150°C) until cooked through.

  3. Once cool, ice the cake with water icing.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Allspice + curranttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,359 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl benzoate (fruity, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 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

Scrap cake trimmings
Provide the bulk and body of the cake, binding the dough together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and deep sweetness to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to release gas, helping the cake rise and lighten.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the crumb.
Flour
Gives the dough structure so it holds a medium stiff shape.

The step that matters

Bake in a cool oven. A low, gentle oven lets the cake cook through and rise evenly without the surface browning or setting before the centre is done.

Swap the currant

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Vanillafits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, butter, ginger, allspice, 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes