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Ginger Cookies
One cupful of molasses, one-half cupful of sugar, two-thirds cupful of butter, one-half cupful of water, one egg, two teaspoonfuls of saleratus, one-half teaspoonful of alum, one teaspoonful of ginger, flour enough to roll out soft. Bake quick.
A rolled molasses cookie of the plainest sort, leavened with soda and a little alum, and typical of the era in giving no flour quantity, no oven temperature and no yield. A few translations make it workable.
- Saleratus is baking sodaTwo teaspoonfuls of saleratus is two teaspoons of baking soda, which the acid in the molasses will activate. Early saleratus was potassium bicarbonate, though by the later nineteenth century the name was commonly applied to sodium bicarbonate; potassium bicarbonate is somewhat weaker by weight, so modern soda may give a little more lift. Two teaspoons is a generous amount and can leave a faintly soapy, alkaline edge.
- The alumAlum here is potassium aluminum sulfate, the same product still sold for pickling. It was used as an acid to help the soda work. Half a teaspoon across this much dough is a small amount, but it is optional; the molasses supplies enough acid on its own, and alum can leave a metallic astringency some palates pick up.
- "Bake quick"Period usage varies, but a quick oven is generally reckoned around 400-425F. For thin rolled cookies that means roughly 8 to 10 minutes, and they will still look soft in the centre when they should come out. Molasses scorches fast at that heat, so watch the undersides.
- "Flour enough to roll out soft"Expect somewhere around 4 to 5 cups. The instruction is deliberate: the dough should be the softest one that will still take a rolling pin without sticking. Chill it an hour and roll it on a well-floured board rather than tightening it with extra flour.
- Butter measurementTwo-thirds cupful of butter is about 5 1/3 ounces, or 1 1/3 sticks. Period butter was often salted; if using unsalted, add half a teaspoon of salt, which the recipe omits entirely.
- Ginger quantityOne teaspoon of ground ginger is restrained by modern standards, and older ground ginger lost strength on the shelf. A tablespoon is closer to what most cooks now expect from a ginger cookie, with cinnamon or clove if you want depth.
- YieldDepending on cutter size, rolled to about 1/8 inch this makes several dozen cookies, likely five dozen or more. They keep well in a tin and soften over a day or two, which was the point of a molasses cookie.
Molasses was widely used in place of sugar in American home baking for much of the nineteenth century, being cheaper, and a rolled ginger cookie was the standard keeping cookie of the farmhouse tin. The alum in this formula is a survival from the pre-baking-powder era, when cooks paired an alkali with whatever acid was to hand: sour milk, cream of tartar, vinegar or alum, the last widely sold at the grocer for pickling and for setting dyes. By the turn of the century, commercial baking powder had largely displaced such improvisations, and alum in food was becoming controversial as part of the wider pure-food agitation that led to federal regulation.