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Dessert

Crisp Ginger Cakes

A sweet ginger cake made with flour, sugar, butter, molasses, ginger, cloves, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,038 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Crisp Ginger Cakes

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. Mix the flour, sugar, and butter together.

  2. Add the ginger, cloves, molasses, and baking soda.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll the dough thin and cut into shapes.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden.

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. Ginger + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,038 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Clove + molassestop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,483 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Ginger + molassestop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Forms the structure of the dough once it is mixed with liquid and fat.
Butter
Adds fat that tenderizes the crumb and carries flavor.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark sweetness, and color to the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidity in molasses to produce gas that lightens the cakes.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the cakes brown as they bake.
Ginger
Provides the main spicy aroma that defines the cakes.

The step that matters

Rolling the dough thin. Thin dough bakes through and crisps evenly, while thick dough can stay doughy in the center and burn at the edges before it sets.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Clovethe original

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