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Dessert

Taylor Cakes

A sweet cake made with sugar, lard, eggs, milk, molasses, flour, cinnamon, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,341 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Taylor Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA good oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a good oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix the lard and sugar together with the ground cinnamon.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk before adding.

  3. Add the eggs, molasses, milk, and flour to the mixture.

Bake

  1. Use about 1 tablespoon of dough for each cake.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden.

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. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Milk + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Lard
Adds fat that keeps the cakes tender and short in texture.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as the proteins set.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and dark colour, and its acidity helps the baking soda react.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the cakes together as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the cakes.

The step that matters

Dissolve the baking soda in the milk before adding. Dissolving baking soda in liquid first spreads it evenly through the batter, so the cakes rise uniformly and avoid bitter or soapy patches. Molasses is acidic and needs this even distribution to react fully with the soda.

“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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