Name: Ginger Cakes
Ingredients: 6 egg yolks; 1½ pints syrup; 1 teacup brown sugar; ¼ cup melted butter; 1 tablespoon ground ginger; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 4 teaspoons water; flour (enough to make a soft dough)

Why it works: Ginger and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Cakes

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make and shape the dough

In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, syrup, brown sugar, melted butter, ground ginger, ground cinnamon, and dissolved baking soda.
Gradually add flour until the mixture is soft enough to roll.
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.

Bake

Brush the tops with a beaten egg before baking.
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.

Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,380 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Syrup + sugartop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,842 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,341 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together30,779 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Egg yolks: Add richness and bind the dough together.
Syrup: Adds sweetness, moisture and a chewy texture to the dough.
Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and promotes browning during baking.
Melted butter: Adds fat for tenderness and flavour.
Ground ginger: Provides the main spiced aroma that defines the cakes.
Baking soda: Reacts with the syrup's acidity to help the cakes rise and darken.

Swap the ginger

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

Nutmegfits better
Cardamomfits better
Gingerthe original
Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, syrup, sugar, butter, cinnamon, 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.