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Dessert

Honey Cake

Honey Cake is a sweet baked cake made with sugar, flour, ginger, butter, honey, baking soda, and hot water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Honey Cake

Why it works: Ginger and honey are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,163 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Honey 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

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

  2. In a bowl, mix sugar, flour, and ginger.

Make the dough

  1. Cream the butter and add it to the dry ingredients.

  2. Stir in the honey and the baking soda dissolved in hot water to form a smooth dough.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough to ¼ inch thick and cut into small cakes.

  2. Bake for 25 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.

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 + honeytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + honeytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,327 recipes

    Shared aroma: anethole (sweet, anise).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

All-purpose flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together and sets as it bakes.
Honey
Adds moisture and sweetness, and helps the cakes brown and stay soft.
Butter
Adds fat for tenderness and a rich mouthfeel in the baked cakes.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic honey to lighten the dough and aid browning.
Sugar
Sweetens the dough and contributes to browning on the surface.
Ground ginger
Supplies the warm, spicy aroma that defines the cake.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda and mixing it into the honey dough. Baking soda must be fully dissolved and evenly distributed through the dough, or pockets of it will leave bitter, soapy spots and uneven rise as the honey reacts with it.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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