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Dessert

Molasses Cakes

A sweet cake made with molasses, butter, sour milk, sugar, flour, eggs, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Molasses Cakes

Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

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.

Prepare the batter

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

  2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together.

  3. Add the molasses and sour milk, mixing well.

  4. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and then add them to the mixture.

  5. Sift the flour and baking soda together, then gradually add to the wet ingredients.

  6. Mix until just combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into deep pans and bake for 30-40 minutes or 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.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and give the cakes a tender, rich crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, helping the cakes set as they bake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to release gas, helping the cakes rise.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes as its proteins set during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavour and dark colour, along with sweetness.
Sour milk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and tenderises the crumb.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined. Once flour meets liquid, gluten begins to form. Overmixing toughens the batter and can make the cakes dense, so stop as soon as no dry flour remains.

“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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