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Dessert

Charcoal Ginger Cake

A ginger cake made with charcoal, butter, molasses, brown sugar, water, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Charcoal 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.

Prepare

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

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a bowl, cream together the butter or dripping, molasses, and brown sugar.

  2. Add the water, ginger, baking soda, and pulverized charcoal, mixing well.

  3. Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll.

  4. Roll out the dough and cut into shapes with a cake cutter.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until cooked through.

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. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter or dripping
Adds fat that makes the cake tender and rich in flavor.
Molasses
Adds moisture, sweetness, and the dark color and deep flavor of ginger cake.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cake brown as it bakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Pulverized charcoal
Adds color and a dark, earthy note to the dough.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is firm enough to roll. Adding flour too quickly can make the dough stiff and dense, while too little leaves it sticky and hard to shape. Adding it gradually lets you stop once the dough holds together for rolling.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, sugar, 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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