Skip to main content
Dessert

Ginger Cake

A simple ginger cake made with flour, brown sugar, ginger, treacle, egg powder, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
Ginger Cake

Why it works: Flour and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

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.

Make the batter

  1. Mix the flour, brown sugar, ground ginger, and Egg Powder in a bowl.

  2. Add the treacle and a little milk, stirring until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a baking tin.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) until cooked through.

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. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Flour
Provides the starch and gluten that give the cake its structure.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown.
Ground ginger
Gives the cake its spicy aroma and flavour.
Treacle
Adds sweetness, moisture and a deep golden-brown colour.
Egg powder
Helps bind the batter and set it as it bakes.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the batter so it combines smoothly.

The step that matters

Bake until cooked through. Heat sets the starch and proteins in the batter. If the cake comes out too early, the centre stays wet and gummy; if it bakes too long, it dries out. Check that the centre is set before removing it from the oven.

Swap the ginger

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, sugar, egg, milk. 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.

More ginger cake recipes

Soft 45Molasses 13Hard 6Sponge 5Yorkshire 5Honey 4 See all 129 →

You might also like

Ginger CookiesGinger Cookies213 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesGinger Pound CakeGinger Pound Cake29 recipesGinger Ice CreamGinger Ice Cream28 recipes