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Dessert

Cocoanut Ginger Cakes

A baked cake made with flour, butter, molasses, ginger, coconut, and lemon rind.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Rice and coconut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,063 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Cocoanut Ginger Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. In a saucepan, boil the molasses and butter together.

  2. Add the all-purpose flour, rice flour, powdered sugar, ginger, coconut, and lemon rind, and stir briskly for 5 minutes.

Bake

  1. Butter a pastry tin and drop the mixture in using a tablespoon.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 20 minutes.

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. Rice + coconuttop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,063 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Ginger + coconuttop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Rice + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,196 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Rice flour
Adds a lighter, more delicate texture to the crumb.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a tender texture.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep color to the cakes.
Ginger
Contributes the warm, spicy aroma and flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring the batter briskly for 5 minutes. Vigorous stirring develops gluten in the flour, which gives the cakes structure and a firmer, chewier bite. Keeping the mixture well combined also distributes the molasses, butter and dry ingredients evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (flour, rice, butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, coconut):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, rice, butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, coconut. 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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