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Dessert

Cube Ginger Cake

A ginger cake with preserved ginger, baked and iced with ginger syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Cube Ginger Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the cake

  1. Preheat the oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Warm the butter and sugar slightly in a bowl.

  3. Beat until creamy with a wooden spoon.

  4. Add the beaten eggs, sifted flour, ground ginger, and baking powder. Mix well.

  5. Stir in the chopped preserved ginger.

  6. Line a 9-inch square baking tin with buttered paper. Pour the mixture into the tin.

  7. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

  8. Turn out the cake. Remove the paper.

Shape and ice

  1. Cut into four pieces.

  2. Stack the pieces on top of each other to form a cube.

  3. Trim the edges if necessary.

  4. In a pan, combine icing sugar, syrup from preserved ginger, and enough water to make a pourable icing.

  5. Pour the icing over the cake. Ensure it is fully covered.

  6. Decorate the top with candied cube ginger.

  7. Allow the icing to set before serving.

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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  4. Flour + gingertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb through fat coating the flour.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift when beaten into the batter.
Flour
Forms the cake's structure as its proteins set during baking.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the cake rises and becomes light.
Preserved ginger
Adds moisture, sweetness and a strong ginger flavour through the cake.
Icing sugar
Forms a sweet glaze that sets firm over the cake's surface.

The step that matters

Allow the icing to set before serving. Icing made from sugar and syrup hardens as it cools and sugar recrystallises. Cutting or handling too early smears the glaze and leaves it sticky.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Jalapenofits better
  4. Gingerthe original

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