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Dessert

Ginger Drop Cakes

A sweet cake made with butter, molasses, ginger, cinnamon, and flour, baked into drop cakes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter, brown sugar, and molasses together in a bowl.

  2. Stir in the hot water until well combined.

  3. Add the beaten eggs and mix well.

  4. Gradually add the flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon, stirring until smooth.

Bake and finish

  1. Drop spoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

  3. Ice with boiled icing flavored with vanilla.

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. Flour + cinnamontop 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. Sugar + molassestop 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

Butter
Adds richness and tenderness, and helps the cakes stay soft.
Molasses
Adds moisture, deep flavor, and dark color to the cakes.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure as they set during baking.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cakes as the batter sets.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lift the batter and help the cakes rise.

The step that matters

Gradually adding the flour, baking soda, ginger, and cinnamon. Adding dry ingredients gradually and stirring only until smooth keeps the batter from becoming tough. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, which makes the cakes dense and chewy rather than light.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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