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Dessert

Frosted Creams

A molasses and ginger cake topped with a frosted egg white glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Frosted Creams

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 the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make and shape the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, molasses, sugar, shortening, ginger, baking soda, water, and spices until well combined.

  2. Roll the dough into oblong pieces and place them on a baking sheet.

Bake and frost

  1. Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven.

  2. Frost the top with the reserved egg whites.

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + gingertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,337 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 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

Eggs
Bind the dough and, as whites, provide the frosting.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color and moisture to the dough.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and helps it brown in the oven.
Shortening
Adds fat for a tender texture.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to help the cookies rise and soften.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown, then remove from the oven.. Molasses and sugar brown quickly, so the cookies can over-darken and turn dry or bitter if left in too long. Pull them when golden brown for a soft, moist center.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, molasses, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Gingerthe original
  4. Allspicefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, sugar. 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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