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Dessert

Ginger Pound Cake

A dense cake made with butter, brown sugar, ginger, molasses, milk, flour, eggs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Ginger Pound Cake

Why it works: Cinnamon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Ginger Pound Cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Start

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the batter

  1. Cream together the butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and ginger.

  2. Beat the molasses until light. Mix the baking soda into the molasses.

  3. Beat the eggs until very light.

  4. Add the eggs alternately with the sweet milk and flour to the creamed mixture.

Bake

  1. Butter the square pans.

  2. Line the pans with parchment paper.

  3. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.

  4. Bake until done.

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. Cinnamon + nutmegtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Cinnamon + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Flour
Builds the cake's main structure as its proteins set during baking.
Butter
Adds richness and a tender crumb by coating flour particles and carrying flavor.
Eggs
Provide structure and lift, helping the batter set firm yet stay tender.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and moisture, and helps the crust brown during baking.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness that defines the cake's character.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic molasses to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Mixing the baking soda into the molasses. Baking soda only leavens when an acid is present, and molasses supplies it. Combining them before adding the other ingredients lets the reaction spread evenly through the batter, giving a uniform rise rather than dense pockets.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, cinnamon, molasses, milk, nutmeg. 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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