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Dessert

Soft Molasses Cake

A moist cake made with molasses, butter, brown sugar, flour, spices, and boiling water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Soft Molasses Cake

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and brown sugar together.

  2. Add the well-beaten egg, baking soda, and spices, then mix in the molasses.

  3. Sift in the flour gradually, stirring well after each addition.

  4. Finally, add the boiling water and mix until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the batter into a flat cake pan about 12 inches square.

  2. Bake until light and fluffy, and serve warm.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Molasses + cinnamontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

Butter
Creams with the sugar to trap air and add richness and tender texture.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure as it sets in the oven.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to produce gas, helping the cake rise.
Flour
Provides the main structure that sets the cake as it bakes.
New orleans molasses
Adds deep sweetness, moisture, and color, and its acidity activates the baking soda.

The step that matters

Adding the boiling water. Boiling water loosens the batter and helps the baking soda react and spread evenly. Mixing only until combined avoids overworking the flour, which would toughen the cake.

Swap the ginger

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

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

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