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Dessert

Ginger Cake

A sweet cake made with lard, sugar, eggs, syrup, ginger, buttermilk, baking soda, salt, raisins, and flour.

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

Why it works: Raisin and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Ginger 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the lard and sugar together.

  2. Add the eggs and beat well.

  3. Dissolve the baking soda in the buttermilk and add it to the mixture.

  4. Then add the syrup, flour, and ginger.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased tin.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until done.

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. Raisin + flourtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Syrup + buttermilktop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together124 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Buttermilk + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Sugar + buttermilktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lard
Provides fat that makes the cake tender and moist.
Eggs
Add structure and richness, binding the batter as it sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the buttermilk acid to produce gas that lifts the cake.
Buttermilk
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds tenderness.
Flour
Forms the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a darker color through browning.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the buttermilk. Baking soda needs an acid such as buttermilk to release gas. Dissolving it fully before mixing spreads the leavening evenly, so the cake rises without pockets or dense patches.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, syrup, buttermilk, raisin, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, syrup, buttermilk, raisin, flour. 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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