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Dessert

Gingerbread Cake

A baked cake made with flour, margarine, sugar, candied peel, ginger, baking soda, milk, egg, and golden syrup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and syrup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,842 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Gingerbread Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA fairly slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a fairly slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Slightly warm the margarine, sugar, and syrup, then beat until creamy.

  2. Add the egg and mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, candied peel, salt, ground ginger, and baking soda.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in a little milk, then add to the mixture.

  5. Mix everything together until well combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the batter into a greased tin.

  2. Bake in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) for about an 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. Sugar + syruptop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

All-purpose flour
Provides the main structure that holds the cake together as it sets.
Margarine
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Lyle's golden syrup
Adds sweetness, moisture, and a deep golden colour that browns the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic syrup and lifts the batter so it rises.
Egg
Binds the batter and helps give the cake its set structure.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in milk. Baking soda needs to be evenly dispersed in the batter to react with the syrup and rise uniformly. Clumps left in the batter can cause bitter pockets and uneven lift, so it should be fully dissolved before it is added.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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