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Gingerbread, Fried Cakes, Cookies, and Other Cakes

A collection of gingerbread, sponge gingerbread, ginger snaps, seed cookies, and fried cakes made with butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Catharine Esther Beecher (1800–1878) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and tea work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 216 recipes. Both carry (e)-2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Gingerbread, Fried Cakes, Cookies, and Other Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gingerbread dough

  1. Take half a pint of molasses, a small cup of soft butter, a gill and a half of water, a heaping teaspoon of soda dissolved in a tablespoon of hot water, and one even tablespoon of strong ginger, or two if weak.

  2. Knead butter and ginger into the flour.

  3. Add the water, soda, and molasses. While doing it, put in two tablespoons of vinegar.

  4. Add two beaten eggs to the above mixture.

  5. Add water to make it thin as a pound-cake.

  6. Bake as soon as well mixed.

  7. Mix one cup of butter, two cups of sugar or molasses, one cup of water, one tablespoon of ginger, one heaping teaspoon of cinnamon, one of cloves, and one teaspoon of soda dissolved in a small cup of hot water.

  8. Add flour for a stiff dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough into cakes an inch thick.

  2. Roll and cut into small round cakes.

  3. Bake half an hour in a quick oven.

  4. Omit the spices, and add four or five tablespoons of caraway seeds, and you have seed-cakes.

  5. Leave out all spice and seeds, and you have plain cookies.

  6. For doughnuts, use the recipe for plain sponge cake, add enough flour to roll.

  7. Or take plain cake raised with eggs, and add enough flour to roll.

  8. Or take dough cake, or plain loaf cake, and thicken so as to roll.

  9. Roll about half an inch thick and cut into oblong pieces.

  10. For crullers, take plain cake raised with eggs, and thicken stiff with flour.

  11. Roll it thin, cut into strips, and form twisted cakes.

  12. More sugar and butter make it richer, but less healthful.

Fry

  1. Have plenty of lard, or better, strained beef-fat, quite hot; try with a small piece first, and if right, there will be a bubbling.

  2. Turn two or three times to cook all alike.

  3. Break open one to try if done.

  4. When done, take up with a skimmer and drain well.

  5. If the fat is too hot, it will brown too quick.

  6. If not hot enough, the fat will soak into the cake.

  7. Remember that frying is the most unhealthful mode of cooking food, and the one most likely to be done amiss.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

298Calories
6 gProtein
17 gFat
31 gCarbs

Counts 7 of 10 ingredients. The other 3 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 7 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Cinnamon1 tsp ground (2.6g)6
Vinegar1 tbsp (15ml) distilled3
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
Waternot in our table0
Ginnot in our table0
Caraway Seednot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Catharine Esther Beecher (1800–1878). 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. See the original page.

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 + teatop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together216 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  2. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the dough.
Soda
Reacts with the acidic and molasses mix to lighten the dough as it bakes.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
Ginger
Provides the main spice flavor of the cakes.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that reacts with the soda to help the dough rise.

The step that matters

Frying temperature. If the fat is too hot the outside browns before the cake cooks through; if it is not hot enough the fat soaks into the cake, making it greasy.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, molasses, gin, vinegar, egg, tea):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, gin, vinegar, egg, tea. 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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