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Baking

New Year Cakes

Spiced cakes or cookies made from butter, molasses, sugar, ginger and flour, rolled thin or cut and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog] · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and caraway match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,435 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

New Year Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

Make the dough

  1. Work one-half pound of butter into one and one-half pounds of good flour.

  2. Mix it with one-half pound of molasses, one-quarter pound of brown sugar, a teaspoonful of ginger and the same of caraway seeds.

  3. Mix well together and form it into cakes not larger than a crown piece.

  4. Mix molasses, sugar, ginger and butter.

  5. Stir over the fire until the butter is melted.

  6. Stir in quickly four cups of flour in which has been sifted the pulverized soda.

  7. Knead the dough with more flour until stiff enough to roll out easily.

  8. Roll as thin as pasteboard.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut long and print, or cut as cookies.

  2. Place in a baking pan and bake in a moderate oven.

  3. Bake in a quick oven.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

815Calories
21 gProtein
21 gFat
135 gCarbs

Counts 6 of 7 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 6 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Milk1 cup (244ml) whole149
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Molasses1 tbsp (20g)58
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49
Ginger1 tsp grated fresh (2g)2
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 Clarke, Mary Lamson. [from old catalog]. 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. Flour + carawaytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,435 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Caraway + gingertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together288 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the dough hold together.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark colour and a deep sweetness to the dough.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and lets it be rolled thin.
Soda
Reacts with the molasses to lighten the dough and help it spread and brown.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown and stay crisp.

The step that matters

Roll as thin as pasteboard. Thin dough bakes evenly and turns crisp. Thick dough stays soft in the middle and may not dry out, so the cakes can be uneven.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, caraway, milk, molasses, sugar. 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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