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Dessert

Hard Ginger-cake

A ginger cake made with eggs, molasses, baking soda, lard, salt, ginger, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and ginger are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,116 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Hard Ginger-cake

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Beat together the eggs and molasses in a bowl.

  3. Add the baking soda, lard, salt, and ginger, mixing well.

  4. Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff.

Shape and bake

  1. Roll out the dough, not too thin, and cut into desired shapes.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven 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.

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. Molasses + gingertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Ginger + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Molasses + flourtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,429 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Egg + gingertop 33% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together7,337 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Bind the batter and add structure to the dough.
Molasses
Adds sweetness, dark color, and moisture to the dough.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses to lift the dough and help it rise.
Lard
Adds fat for tenderness and a short texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that makes the dough stiff enough to roll and cut.

The step that matters

Gradually add flour until the dough is stiff. Adding flour gradually lets you judge how much the dough needs. Too little leaves it sticky and hard to roll, while too much makes the cake dense and dry. Stop once the dough holds its shape.

Swap the ginger

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

  1. Jalapenofits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, molasses, flour. 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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