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New York Gingerbread
1 cup butter (scant) 1 1/2 cups flour 2 tablespoons yellow ginger 5 eggs 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar 1 teaspoon baking powder Cream the butter, and add flour gradually, mixed and sifted with ginger. Beat the yolks of the eggs until thick and lemon-colored, and add sugar gradually. Combine mixtures, add whites of eggs, beaten until stiff, and sift over baking powder. Beat thoroughly, turn into a buttered deep cake pan, and bake one hour in a moderate oven.
This is a gingerbread in the older sense: a rich butter-and-egg cake spiced heavily with dried ginger, with no molasses and no dark sugar at all. It behaves like a pound cake, and the method rewards care with the eggs.
- Powdered sugarIn books of this period "powdered sugar" usually means finely granulated sugar, not the cornstarch-laden confectioners' sugar sold under that name today. Use superfine (caster) sugar; it creams into the yolks without grittiness.
- Yellow gingerThis is ordinary dried ground ginger, distinguished from green (fresh) root ginger. It is not turmeric, despite that spice also being sold as yellow ginger in some markets.
- Two tablespoons is not a misprintRoughly 12 g of ground ginger to 1 1/2 cups flour is a fierce dose by modern standards, and it is the point of the cake. Ground ginger loses potency fast, so an old jar will give a flat, dusty result; anyone uneasy with the heat can drop to one tablespoon.
- Scant cup of butterAbout 7 oz / 200 g. "Scant" means a little under the level cup, not a heaping one.
- Creaming orderThe butter is creamed with the flour rather than the sugar, which is unusual. Work them to a smooth paste, then combine with the yolk-and-sugar mixture and the beaten whites. Note that the recipe itself then directs you to beat thoroughly, so this batter is not handled as a delicately folded sponge.
- Baking powder sifted overSifting the leavener over the surface at the end distributes it without re-sifting it through the flour. The recipe then calls for beating thoroughly rather than folding.
- Moderate oven350F / 175C. A deep 8-inch round or a 9x5 loaf pan, buttered and lined, is the right size; start testing at 45 minutes, as the full hour suits only the deepest pan.
- Yield and servingEight to ten slices. It keeps well wrapped for several days and is better on the second day, when the ginger has settled into the crumb; serve plain or with whipped cream.