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Dessert

Taylor Cake

A molasses cake made with butter, brown sugar, flour, molasses, sour cream, eggs, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Cinnamon and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,380 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Taylor Cake

Oven, in the book's wordsA very hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a very hot oven”. The 400°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the egg yolks, molasses, and one-fourth of the flour.

  3. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the sour cream and add it along with another one-fourth of the flour.

  5. Mix in the remaining flour.

Bake

  1. Drop spoonfuls onto baking sheets about two inches apart.

  2. Bake in a very hot oven (400°F / 200°C) for ten 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 their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cinnamon + gingertop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Flour + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  5. Sugar + cinnamontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Sugar and cinnamon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Eggs
Egg whites are folded in to lighten the batter and give it lift and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic sour cream and molasses to produce gas, helping the cookies rise and spread.
Sour cream
Its acidity activates the baking soda and adds moisture and tenderness to the dough.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness, moisture, and molasses flavour, and helps the cookies brown.
Butter
Creamed with the sugar to trap air and add richness and fat for tenderness.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture, and deep flavour, and contributes to browning.

The step that matters

Dissolving the baking soda in the sour cream. Baking soda needs an acid to react and release gas. Dissolving it fully in the sour cream before adding it spreads the leavening evenly, so the cakes rise uniformly instead of unevenly or with bitter pockets.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, flour, molasses, cream, egg, cinnamon):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, flour, molasses, cream, egg, cinnamon. 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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