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Dessert

Gingerbread Cake

A moist gingerbread cake made with flour, butter, treacle, sugar, raisins, almonds, eggs, baking soda, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and raisin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,075 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Gingerbread Cake

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

  1. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, spices, raisins, and split almonds.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, and treacle, and bring to a boil.

Make the batter

  1. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl, then pour the boiling mixture into the eggs while stirring vigorously.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased cake tin and bake at 350°F (175°C) for about 1 hour.

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. Flour + raisintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Almond + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,514 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Raisin + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,390 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Raisin + almondtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,781 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  5. Flour + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,673 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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.
Unsalted butter
Adds fat for a tender crumb and rich flavour.
Treacle
Gives moisture, dark colour and the characteristic gingerbread flavour.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cake brown and stay moist.
Eggs
Bind the batter and add structure and richness as they set.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic treacle to release gas, helping the cake rise.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling mixture into the eggs. Pouring boiling syrup straight into eggs while stirring vigorously keeps the eggs from scrambling and lets them blend smoothly into the batter. Stirring quickly spreads the heat evenly.

“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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