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Dessert

Soft Ginger Cake

A moist ginger cake made with butter, brown sugar, molasses, sweet milk, ginger, cinnamon, eggs, flour, baking soda, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Soft Ginger Cake

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 ↓

Soft 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter and brown sugar.

  2. Add the molasses, sweet milk, ginger, and cinnamon; mix well.

  3. Beat in the eggs, separating the whites and yolks.

  4. Gradually add the sifted flour.

  5. Mix in the baking soda dissolved in water.

  6. Add the remaining sifted flour. Mix until combined.

Prepare and bake

  1. Butter the pans. Line the pans with parchment paper.

  2. Divide the batter evenly between the pans.

  3. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 40 to 60 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.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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
Creaming with sugar traps air and adds richness and a tender crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and deep sweetness with a characteristic ginger-cake flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure and richness, helping the cake set and hold its crumb.
Sifted flour
Forms the cake's structure once gluten develops and the batter sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with molasses' acidity to produce gas, helping the cake rise and lighten.

The step that matters

Mix in the baking soda dissolved in water. Baking soda reacts with the acidic molasses to release carbon dioxide. Adding it well-dispersed in water and mixing promptly keeps the rise even and the crumb fine, while overmixing after flour is added can toughen the cake.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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