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Soft Ginger Cake
One cup of molasses, one-half cup water, one-half teaspoon soda, one-half cup butter, one egg, two cups of flour, one-half teaspoon ginger.
— Mrs. Peter Schubert
A typical village receipt: the ingredients are complete but the method is left to the cook's judgment. Nothing here is dangerous, only unstated.
- Method, since none is givenCream the softened butter with the molasses, beat in the egg, then add the flour and ginger alternately with the water. The soda should be dissolved in the water or whisked into the flour so it disperses evenly rather than leaving dark bitter streaks.
- Soda and molassesThe half teaspoon of soda is the only leavening; it reacts with the acid in the molasses, so there is no baking powder and none is needed. Get the batter into the pan and into the oven promptly, as most of the lift happens in the first few minutes after mixing.
- Molasses to useNineteenth-century household molasses was closer to today's light or full-flavor unsulphured molasses. Blackstrap is far more bitter and will overwhelm the modest half teaspoon of ginger.
- OvenNo temperature is given. A modern equivalent is a moderate oven, around 350F; hotter and the sugars in the molasses scorch at the edges before the center sets.
- Pan and timeThe batter fills an 8-inch square pan or a 9-inch round, greased, to a depth of about an inch. Expect 25 to 30 minutes, until the top springs back and a tester comes out clean.
- "Soft" ginger cakeThe name distinguishes this from rolled and cut gingerbread or hard ginger snaps. The batter should pour thickly rather than be stiff enough to handle; if your flour is thirsty, another spoonful or two of water is in keeping.
- GingerHalf a teaspoon is restrained by modern taste. Ground ginger loses potency within a year of opening, so an old jar will give almost nothing; a full teaspoon of fresh ground ginger is closer to the intended effect.
- YieldOne small cake, nine squares. It is best the day it is made and better still slightly warm, plain or with whipped cream.
Molasses gingerbread was a mainstay of American home baking through the nineteenth century, and its persistence has a simple economic explanation: molasses was cheap where refined white sugar was not, and it carried its own acidity, so it paired with saleratus or soda before commercial baking powder came into general use. Community cookbooks of this kind printed receipts under a contributor's name, and such books generally assume a reader who already knows how to mix and bake a cake and needs only the proportions. That is why the page reads as a list rather than a set of directions, and why no oven temperature appears: a cook working a wood range judged heat by hand and experience, not by number.