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Dessert

Yorkshire Ginger Cake

A ginger cake made with eggs, cream, butter, sugar, ginger, flour, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Yorkshire Ginger Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Whisk the eggs thoroughly and add the cream, beating them together.

  2. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and stir until warm.

  3. Add the butter, sugar, and ginger, stirring carefully over low heat until the butter melts.

  4. Stir in the flour and salt to form a paste, ensuring the flour is fine.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the paste and cut it with a plain round cutter onto buttered flat tins.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for about 30 minutes.

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. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

Eggs
Bind the mixture and add structure and richness as they set in the oven.
Butter
Adds fat and tenderness, giving the cakes a short, crumbly texture.
Flour
Forms the paste's main structure, setting as the cakes bake.
Ground ginger
Provides the characteristic spiced aroma and flavour.
Castor sugar
Adds sweetness and helps browning as the cakes bake.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the paste.

The step that matters

Stirring the butter over low heat. Gentle heat melts the butter and dissolves the sugar without overheating the eggs and cream, which can curdle or cause the mixture to separate and make the paste uneven.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, cream, butter, sugar, 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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