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Dessert

Molasses Cake

A moist cake made with molasses, butter, sugar, flour, spices, baking soda, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Molasses Cake

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Molasses Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the molasses and mix well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water.

  4. Add the flour and boiling water alternately to the mixture.

  5. Finally, add the beaten egg and mix until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 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

Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses acid to lift the batter and lighten the crumb.
Molasses
Adds dark color, moisture, and a deep sweetness with mild acidity.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich flavor.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps keep the crumb moist and tender.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the boiling water. Baking soda needs to be fully dissolved so it reacts evenly with the acidic molasses. Lumps leave pockets of soda that can taste bitter and rise unevenly.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, clove, molasses, allspice, flour, egg. 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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