Skip to main content
Dessert

Cream Ginger Cake

A moist ginger cake made with sour cream, molasses, and ground ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Cream Ginger Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a mixing bowl, combine sour cream, molasses, egg, salt, ginger, and baking soda.

  2. Gradually add flour until the batter is soft but not runny.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake pan.

  2. Bake for about 30-40 minutes or 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.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Sour cream
Adds moisture and tang, keeping the cake tender and slightly acidic.
Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color, and moisture with a deep flavor.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to lift the cake as it bakes.
All-purpose flour
Forms the structure of the cake as its proteins and starches set.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the batter is soft but not runny. Adding flour gradually lets you judge the batter's consistency. Too much flour makes the cake dense and dry, while a batter that is too thin may bake up flat and gummy.

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, molasses, egg, ginger, flour):

  1. Nutmegfits about as well
  2. Cinnamonthe original
  3. Turmericfits less well
  4. Cardamomfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, molasses, egg, ginger, flour. 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.

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesMolasses CookiesMolasses Cookies96 recipesGinger CakeGinger Cake93 recipesMolasses CakeMolasses Cake90 recipes