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Dessert

Montgomery Inn Soft Ginger Cake

A moist ginger cake made with dark brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, lard, butter, eggs, flour, spices, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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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 ↓

Montgomery Inn 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.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the dark brown sugar, molasses, sour milk, lard, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add the eggs and mix until smooth.

  3. In another bowl, combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and baking soda.

  4. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture, stirring until just combined.

  5. Pour the batter into a greased baking pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 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

Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as the batter bakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness to the crumb.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and deep sweetness to the cake.
Dark brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, helping keep the cake soft.
Baking soda
Reacts with the vinegar and sour milk to produce gas that lifts the batter.
Lard and butter
Add fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.

The step that matters

Stirring in the dry ingredients. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form, so stirring only until just combined keeps the cake tender rather than tough and dense.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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