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Cheap and Very Good Ginger Oven-cake or Cakes

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Eliza Acton · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Cheap and Very Good Ginger Oven-cake or Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Four French eggs (which must be perfectly sweet, or small English ones), six ounces of brown sugar of good quality rolled smooth and fine, six ounces of flour, three of butter, a grain or two of salt, some grated lemon-rind or candied peel sliced very thin, and half an ounce _or more_ of ginger in fine powder. Prepare and mix these ingredients in the order in which they are written, by the directions for “Acton Gingerbread.” Bake the cake nearly the same time. An American oven will answer for it perfectly, and it will resemble a really rich cake, though so cheap. A _small_ quantity of carbonate of soda may be added quite at last by inexpert cake-makers, to insure its being light. The same mixture may be baked in small cups or tins in an iron oven. For a cake of tolerable size half as much again of the ingredients must be taken, and the whole poured into a round or square cake-mould.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

582Calories
19 gProtein
6 gFat
108 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 3 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Sugar1 tbsp (12.5g) granulated49

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

By Eliza Acton. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

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