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Dessert

Deop Molasses Cakes

Molasses cakes are sweet baked goods made with molasses, butter, flour, egg, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,189 recipes. Both carry ethyl cinnamate, which smells sweet, balsamic. The science ↓

Deop Molasses Cakes

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. The book gives no cooking times either; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. In a bowl, mix hot water, melted butter, baking soda, molasses, and egg.

  2. Add ginger, cinnamon, and cloves to taste.

  3. Gradually stir in flour until the mixture is thick enough to drop from a spoon.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for 10-15 minutes or 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.

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 + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color and a rich, moist flavor to the cakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses' acidity to produce gas, helping the cakes rise and spread.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as the cakes set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a richer mouthfeel in the finished cakes.
Flour
Thickens the batter and gives the cakes their structure as they bake.

The step that matters

Adding the flour gradually. Flour must be stirred in slowly so the batter thickens evenly without lumps or overmixing. Overmixing develops gluten, which can make the cakes tough. Stop once the batter is thick enough to drop from a spoon.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, molasses, egg, cinnamon, clove, 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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