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Dessert

Ginger Pound-cake

A sweet cake made with butter, sugar, molasses, ginger, spices, eggs, and flour, baked at 350°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

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

Make the batter

  1. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy.

  2. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl.

  3. Add the molasses, flour, and spices to the butter mixture and mix well for a few minutes.

  4. Pour the batter into a large cake mold.

Bake

  1. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick comes out clean.

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,380 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Nutmeg + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Creams with sugar to add richness and a tender crumb.
Eggs
Add structure and moisture, helping the cake set as it bakes.
Flour
Forms the main structure of the cake once it is baked.
Molasses
Adds moisture, dark color, and a deep sweetness to the cake.
Baking soda
Reacts with the molasses's acidity to help the cake rise.

The step that matters

Mixing the molasses, flour, and spices into the butter mixture. Mixing for a few minutes develops gluten in the flour, which gives structure. Overmixing can make the cake tough, so mix until just combined and smooth.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

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