Gingerbread (Sour Cream)
One cupful of butter, one cupful of brown sugar, four eggs, one cupful of sour cream, one cupful of molasses, one teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in warm water, four cupfuls of flour, teaspoonful of salt, two teaspoonfuls of yellow ginger.
A rich sour-cream gingerbread given only as a list of ingredients — essentially the loaf gingerbread, leaning on soured dairy for its tender crumb.
- MeasuresA cupful each of butter, brown sugar, sour cream, and molasses; 4 cups flour; 4 eggs; and 2 teaspoons ground ginger.
- “Yellow ginger”Simply ordinary ground (dried) ginger — the golden-yellow powder — as opposed to fresh root.
- Dissolve the sodaThe teaspoon of soda is dissolved in warm water so it disperses evenly and reacts cleanly with the sour cream and molasses.
- No method givenCream the butter and sugar, beat in the eggs, then add the wet and dry parts; bake at a moderate 350°F, about 35–45 minutes.
- Loaf or sheetThe batter suits a loaf, square, or sheet pan — just adjust the time to the depth.
Before baking powder was cheap and everywhere, cooks leaned on chemistry they could keep in the pantry: an acid to meet an alkali. Sour cream, buttermilk, and “loppered” (naturally clabbered) milk supplied the acid, and a spoon of saleratus or soda the alkali; where they met, carbon dioxide bubbled up and raised the batter. Molasses, faintly acidic itself, pitched in too. That is why so many old cakes call for soured dairy — not for tang alone, but because the reaction was the leavening. This gingerbread doubles down, using both sour cream and molasses.
From page 66 of the 1904 edition.
Original page from the book
