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Dessert

Ginger Drop Cakes

A sweet drop cake flavored with molasses, ginger, and cinnamon, baked and rolled in sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Ginger Drop Cakes

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 Drop Cakes

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 the dough

  1. In a large bowl, mix molasses, salt, butter or lard, ginger, brown sugar, cinnamon, and boiling water.

  2. Dissolve the baking soda in the mixture.

  3. Beat in the egg and then gradually add the flour until well combined.

Bake and finish

  1. Drop teaspoons of dough onto baking sheets, spacing them two inches apart.

  2. Bake until golden, then roll in granulated sugar while still warm.

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. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + flourtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and a dark, rich flavor to the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the cakes and helps them brown.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together as the cakes set in the oven.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries the spice flavors.
Egg
Binds the dough and helps give the cakes structure and a softer texture.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the cakes brown and stay soft.

The step that matters

Roll in granulated sugar while still warm. Warm cakes are slightly moist on the surface, so the sugar sticks and forms an even coating. Once fully cooled, the sugar tends to fall off.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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