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Dessert

Soft Ginger Cakes

Soft ginger cakes made with eggs, molasses, brown sugar, butter, flour, ginger, baking soda, and sour cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Soft Ginger Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the beaten eggs, molasses, brown sugar, and butter. Mix in the flour and pounded ginger until well combined.

  3. If using fresh butter, add a pinch of salt.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream or milk, then add to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into shallow pans.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick 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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set in the oven.
Molasses
Adds deep sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the cake.
Flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cakes together.
Butter
Adds richness and tenderness through fat in the batter.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream or milk to lift and lighten the cakes.
Sour cream or milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture to the batter.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream or milk. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas for lift. Dissolving it fully in the liquid before adding it spreads the reaction evenly, so the cakes rise without pockets of soda or a bitter taste.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

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