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Spice Cake (One cup dark molasses one cup)
One cup dark molasses, one cup strong coffee, one-half cup butter, one egg, one teaspoon soda dissolved in hot water, two teaspoons cinnamon, two teaspoons nutmeg, one teaspoon cloves, two and onehalf cups flour, one cup raisins chopped and dredged with flour. Filling-One and one-half cups granulated sugar, one-half cup milk; bring to a boil and add butter size of an egg, then boil for five minutes, remove from fire and flavor. Beat until it becomes thick.
— Miss Leah Timmerman
A molasses-and-coffee spice cake of the type that filled church-supper tables, given in the shorthand of a cook who assumed you knew the rest. The original names no pan, no oven and no baking time, so those are the gaps to fill first.
- Oven and panBake at 350F. The batter suits a 9-inch square pan or two 8-inch layers; figure 30-35 minutes for layers, 40-45 for the square, until a skewer comes out clean.
- "Butter size of an egg"Roughly 2 ounces, or 4 tablespoons. It appears only in the filling; the cake itself takes the half cup.
- Soda and molassesThe teaspoon of soda dissolved in hot water is the only leavening, and it works by reacting with the acid in the molasses. Add it last and get the cake into the oven promptly, since the lift begins immediately and does not wait.
- Coffee"Strong coffee" means brewed coffee, not espresso and not instant granules. Let it cool to lukewarm before it meets the butter and egg, or the batter will break.
- Dredging the raisinsTossing the chopped raisins in flour taken from the measured 2 1/2 cups keeps them suspended rather than sinking. Use flour from the total, not extra, or the crumb tightens.
- SpicesTwo teaspoons of nutmeg is a great deal by modern standards, and freshly grated nutmeg is stronger still than the pre-ground tins of the period. One teaspoon of fresh-grated gets you closer to what the original tasted like.
- The filling is a boiled frostingSugar, milk and butter boiled five minutes should bring the syrup into soft-ball range, roughly 235-240F, though how far it gets depends on the heat and the pan; a thermometer settles it. Beat it off the heat until it loses gloss and thickens, then spread promptly, as it can set quickly once it reaches that stage.
- "Flavor"Left unspecified. Vanilla is the likeliest reading, with lemon extract or a spoonful of the same coffee as plausible period alternatives.
- YieldTwelve to sixteen squares, or one filled two-layer cake serving ten. It keeps well; molasses cakes are better on the second day.
Molasses was a common sweetener in American home baking through the nineteenth century, often cheaper than refined sugar, and coffee turns up in these cakes to deepen the colour. The combination with cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves is a common spice-cake formula of the era, close kin to the gingerbreads, differing chiefly in the absence of ginger. The boiled milk-and-sugar filling belongs to the same practical tradition: it needs no confectioners' sugar, only granulated sugar and a watchful five minutes at the stove. Community cookbooks like this one were assembled from contributions signed by name, which is why Miss Leah Timmerman's version stands here as hers rather than as a generic receipt.