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Dessert

Pennsylvania Molasses Crumb Cake

A crumb cake made with brown sugar, butter, molasses, and baking soda, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Pennsylvania Molasses Crumb 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 the crumb

  1. In a bowl, mix brown sugar, flour, and the butter and lard mixture by rubbing them together with your hands until crumbly.

Make the molasses mixture

  1. In a separate bowl, combine the molasses, baking soda, and hot water.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in a little water before adding it to the molasses mixture.

Assemble and bake

  1. Pour the crumb mixture into deep pans, then pour the molasses mixture over the top.

  2. Sprinkle the remaining crumbs over the top and bake immediately in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

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. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + molassestop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crumb brown and stay tender.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the crumb and cake together.
Butter and lard mixture
Adds fat that coats the flour, giving a tender, crumbly texture.
New orleans molasses
Adds deep flavor, moisture, and dark color to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda before adding it to the molasses. Baking soda clumps when added dry and can leave pockets of bitter residue. Dissolving it spreads it evenly so it reacts uniformly with the molasses and the cake rises evenly.

“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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