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Dessert

Sour Milk Ginger Cake

A ginger cake made with sour milk, butter, sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, egg, molasses, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sorghum and milk work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and 55 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

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.

Make the batter

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Add the beaten egg and sorghum, and cream until smooth.

  3. Sift together the baking soda, baking powder, flour, ginger, and salt.

  4. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the sour milk to the creamed mixture, then beat hard for two minutes.

Bake

  1. Place in a greased and floured pan, optionally sprinkle sugar and cinnamon over the top, and bake at 350°F (175°C).

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Sorghum + milktop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Butter + milktop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together81,222 recipes

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

  3. Flour + sorghumtop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together98 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sorghum + gingertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together31 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlaplow
    Mentioned together122,858 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour share little aroma chemistry, yet 122,858 recipes mention both: they likely 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
Adds fat that tenderises the crumb and carries flavour.
Flour
Provides the structure that sets the cake's crumb as it bakes.
Egg
Binds the batter and adds structure and richness.
Sorghum or new orleans molasses
Adds sweetness, moisture and deep colour to the cake.
Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with the baking soda to help the cake rise.
Baking soda
Reacts with the sour milk's acid to produce gas that lifts the batter.

The step that matters

Adding the dry ingredients alternately with the sour milk. Alternating keeps the batter emulsified and prevents overmixing, while the acid-soda reaction starts as soon as they meet, so the batter should go into the pan promptly to trap that gas for a good rise.

“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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