Skip to main content
Dessert

Orange Ginger Cakes

A sweet cake flavored with orange zest and ginger, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Ginger and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 1,833 recipes mention both. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

The recipe

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

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

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, combine flour and sugar.

  2. Rub in the butter until well mixed.

  3. Add baking soda, cream of tartar, ground ginger, and orange rind; mix well.

  4. Beat the eggs and stir them into the mixture.

  5. Add enough milk to form a stiff dough.

Bake

  1. Drop rough heaps of dough onto a greased baking sheet.

  2. Bake for about 20 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Ginger + orangetop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,833 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  3. Butter + creamtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together41,494 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + creamtop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together43,437 recipes

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

  5. Flour + buttertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the cake together as it bakes.
Butter
Rubbed into the flour to add richness and a tender texture.
Eggs
Bind the dough and add structure and richness.
Baking soda
Reacts with the cream of tartar to produce gas that helps the cake rise.
Cream of tartar
Acidifies the mixture so it reacts with the baking soda to help rising.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown as it bakes.

The step that matters

Add enough milk to form a stiff dough. Too much milk makes the dough loose and spreading, so the heaps lose their shape and bake flat. Add milk gradually until the dough holds together.

“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.

You might also like

Orange Bundt CakeOrange Bundt Cake349 recipesGinger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesOrange Cream Rice PuddingOrange Cream Rice Pudding121 recipesOrange GelatinOrange Gelatin100 recipes