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Dessert

Ginger Pound Cake

A moist pound cake flavored with ginger, molasses, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Ginger Pound Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Pound Cake

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add well-beaten eggs, molasses, spices, sour cream, and flour sifted with baking powder. Mix until well combined.

  3. Pour the batter into a greased pan.

Bake

  1. Bake for nearly an hour 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.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Flour + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to trap air and give the cake a rich, tender crumb.
Sugar
Sweetens the cake and helps hold air when creamed with butter, aiding a light texture.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as the batter sets in the oven.
Baking powder
Releases gas in the batter so the cake rises and becomes lighter.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and dark color to the cake.
Sour cream
Adds moisture and tenderness, and its acidity supports the rise.

The step that matters

Creaming the butter and sugar. Beating butter and sugar together traps air in the fat, which gives the cake lift and a fine, even crumb. Butter that is too cold or underbeaten leaves the batter dense.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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