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Dessert

Sponge Gingerbread, Without Eggs

A moist gingerbread cake made with molasses, sour milk, sugar, baking soda, butter, flour, and ginger spices, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Sponge Gingerbread, Without Eggs

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 the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a large bowl, mix the molasses and sour milk.

  3. Add the sugar and baking soda, mixing well.

  4. Melt the butter and stir it into the mixture.

  5. Gradually add the flour, mixing until smooth.

  6. Add ginger and spice to taste.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into shallow tins.

  2. Bake until golden and a toothpick comes out clean.

  3. Serve 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.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 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

Molasses
Provides sweetness, dark color and a deep, rich flavor.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to help the cake rise and stay tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour milk and molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.
All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that sets as the batter bakes.
Butter
Adds fat for a softer crumb and richer flavor.

The step that matters

Adding the baking soda to the acidic mixture. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Mixing it into the molasses and sour milk promptly lets the batter rise in the oven, while leaving the batter to stand too long can waste that lift.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against molasses, milk, sugar, butter, 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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