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Dessert

Frosted Creams

A cake made with butter, lard, brown sugar, molasses, coffee, spices, egg yolks, baking soda, and flour, finished with boiled white frosting.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger 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 ↓

Frosted Creams

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.

Make the batter

  1. Combine butter, lard, brown sugar, molasses, coffee, cinnamon, and ginger in a saucepan.

  2. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  3. Allow the mixture to cool.

  4. Stir in the egg yolks and baking soda.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until well combined.

Bake and frost

  1. Pour the batter into shallow pans.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set.

  3. Once cooled, frost with boiled white frosting.

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. Cinnamon + gingertop 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. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Coffee + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together895 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-methoxybenzaldehyde (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Butter
Adds fat and richness, contributing to a tender crumb and flavor.
Lard
Adds fat that helps keep the crumb tender and moist.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb brown during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep, slightly bitter sweetness.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Cooling the boiled mixture before adding the egg yolks and baking soda. Adding eggs and baking soda to a very hot mixture can scramble the yolks and cause the leavening to react too quickly, so the batter may rise unevenly or lose lift. Letting it cool first keeps the eggs smooth and the baking soda working steadily in the oven.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, molasses, coffee, cinnamon, egg, 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.

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