Name: Drop Ginger Cakes
Ingredients: 2 cups baking molasses; 1 cup lard; ¾ cup brown sugar; 1 teaspoon ginger; ½ teaspoon cloves; 1 cup thick milk; 1 teaspoon baking soda; 4 cups flour

Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Drop Ginger 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.

Make the batter

In a large bowl, mix together the baking molasses, lard, brown sugar, ginger, cloves, thick milk, baking soda, and flour until well combined.

Bake

Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto a baking sheet.
Bake in a preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) 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.

Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,038 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,225 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + clovetop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,483 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,116 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together78,219 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Baking molasses: Adds dark color, moisture and a rich, sweet flavor to the cakes.
Lard: Adds fat for tenderness and a moist crumb.
Flour: Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they bake.
Baking soda: Reacts with the molasses acidity to help the cakes rise and brown.
Thick milk: Adds moisture and helps bind the batter into soft dough.

Swap the clove

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

Cinnamonfits better
Cardamomfits better
Clovethe original
Nutmegfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, sugar, ginger, milk, 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.