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Dessert

Ginger Drop Cakes

A moist cake made with molasses, sour cream, brown sugar, shortening, flour, eggs, baking soda, ginger, and orange zest.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Ginger Drop Cakes

Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,833 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Ginger Drop Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix together molasses, sour cream, brown sugar, and shortening until well combined.

  2. Add flour, eggs, baking soda, and ginger to the mixture and stir until smooth.

  3. Grate in the orange zest and mix well.

  4. Drop spoonfuls of the batter into small tins.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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 + orangetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 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. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a rich, slightly bitter sweetness.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity reacts with the baking soda.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to produce gas that lifts the cakes.
Shortening
Adds fat for tenderness and a soft crumb.

Swap the orange

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Orangethe original

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