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Dessert

Molasses Cake Without Shortening

A sweet cake made with molasses, sugar, egg, ginger, vinegar, baking soda, and flour, baked until firm.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Molasses Cake Without Shortening

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Bring 1 cup of molasses to a boil.

  2. Stir in 1 tablespoon of baking soda and pour it over 1 cup of sugar, 1 egg, and 1 tablespoon of ginger while it is foaming.

  3. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar and enough flour to make a stiff batter.

  4. If the batter is too runny, add more flour to make it stiffer.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake and test a few first to ensure they hold their shape.

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 + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + vinegartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

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

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides dark color, moisture, and a deep, sweet flavor.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses and vinegar to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Egg
Adds structure and binds the batter together as it sets.
Flour
Provides the structure that makes the batter stiff enough to hold its shape.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Stir in the baking soda while the molasses is foaming. Baking soda reacts with the acidic molasses and vinegar to release gas. Adding it at the right moment and mixing promptly lets that gas be trapped in the batter, so the cake rises well. Waiting too long lets the reaction fade.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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