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Dessert

Pumpkin Cakes

A sweet baked cake made with butter, sugar, eggs, molasses, pumpkin, sour milk, spices, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Pumpkin Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar.

  2. Add the eggs, molasses, strained pumpkin, and sour milk; mix well.

  3. Stir in the baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, ginger extract, and lemon extract.

  4. Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into greased muffin tins.

  2. Bake for about 45 minutes or 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. Pumpkin + cinnamontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  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

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and add richness and tenderness to the crumb.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness with mild acidity.
Strained pumpkin
Adds moisture and body to the batter, keeping the crumb soft.

The step that matters

Stirring in the baking soda with the sour milk and molasses. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Adding it without the acidic sour milk and molasses, or letting the batter sit too long before baking, wastes its lifting power and leaves the cake dense.

Swap the pumpkin

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

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

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