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Dessert

Molasses Cakes

A sweet cake made with molasses, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, and cinnamon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Molasses Cakes

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Molasses Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the yellow sugar and butter with the cinnamon.

  2. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  3. Stir in the molasses and sweet milk.

  4. Dissolve the baking powder in the milk and add to the mixture.

  5. Gradually add the flour and cream of tartar, mixing until smooth.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

  2. Bake in a preheated oven at 400°F (200°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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness to the crumb.
All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure of the cake as it bakes.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavour and browning to the cake.
Baking powder
Releases gas to help the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Reacts with the leavening to help the cake rise and stabilise the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking powder in the milk. Baking powder must be fully dissolved so its leavening gas is evenly distributed through the batter. Undissolved clumps cause uneven rising and pockets of bitterness or crumbly texture in the finished cake.

Swap the cinnamon

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

  1. Cinnamonthe original
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerfits less well
  4. Allspicefits less well

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