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Dessert

Molasses Cake

A sweet cake made with molasses, sour milk or cream, butter, eggs, spices, and flour.

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

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon 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 ↓

Molasses 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.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. In a large bowl, mix molasses, sour milk or cream, and butter until well combined.

  2. Add eggs and mix until smooth.

  3. Stir in baking soda, ground ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, and spice.

  4. Gradually add flour until batter is as thick as pound cake batter.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour batter into greased pan and bake until toothpick comes out clean.

  2. Serve hot with sauce.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  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

Molasses
Provides dark sweetness, moisture and the cake's characteristic flavor.
Eggs
Add structure and help bind the batter as it sets in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavor.
Sour milk or cream
Supplies moisture and acidity that reacts with the baking soda.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk or cream to lift the batter as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake as it sets in the oven.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until batter is as thick as pound cake batter. Adding flour gradually lets you judge thickness by eye. Too much flour makes the cake dense and dry, while too little leaves it loose and unable to hold its rise.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, butter, egg, flour, nutmeg, cinnamon. 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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