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Drop Ginger Cakes
1 pound butter, cream it as for pound cake. 2 packed quarts flour. 1 pound sugar. 1 pint molasses. 5 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls ginger.--Mrs. N.
A bare list of proportions in the style of a nineteenth-century receipt book: no mixing order, no oven, no time. The quantities are for a household batch, so scale before you start.
- Halve or quarter itAs written this is a pound of butter, a pound of sugar, two quarts of flour and two cups of molasses, enough for many small cakes. A quarter batch (4 oz butter, 4 oz sugar, roughly 2 cups flour, 1/2 cup molasses, 1 egg, 1 1/2 tsp ginger) fits a domestic mixer and two sheet pans.
- "2 packed quarts flour"Flour was measured by volume and pressed into the quart measure. Two packed quarts is roughly 8 to 9 cups, near 2 1/2 lb. This is genuinely imprecise: mix to a soft dough that holds its shape on the spoon and hold back or add flour as needed.
- A pint of molassesTwo cups. Use unsulphured cooking molasses rather than blackstrap, which is far more bitter than the period product and will dominate the ginger.
- No leavening is givenMany drop ginger cakes of the era relied on a teaspoon or so of saleratus (baking soda) dissolved in the molasses, which also cuts its acidity. Without it these bake dense and chewy rather than puffed ": that may be intended, but expect a firm cake, not a soft cookie.
- Method implied by "cream it as for pound cake"Beat butter and sugar until pale, add eggs one at a time, then molasses and ginger, then flour last. Overworking after the flour goes in toughens them.
- Oven and timeThe recipe gives neither. In a modern oven, around 350F: drop by rounded tablespoons two inches apart and bake 10 to 12 minutes, until the edges are set and the centres still look slightly soft; they firm as they cool.
- GingerTwo tablespoons of dried ground ginger for the full batch is modest by modern taste. Ground spice loses potency quickly, so use a fresh jar or increase it.
- Yield and keepingThe full quantity makes something on the order of eight to ten dozen. Molasses cakes keep well in a tin for a week or more and improve on the second day.
Housekeeping in Old Virginia (1878), edited by Marion Cabell Tyree from contributions by numerous Virginia and neighbouring-state housewives, is typical of the community cookbook form: proportions from one woman's memory, printed with her initials and no attempt to standardise. Molasses gingerbread and drop ginger cakes were staples of Southern kitchens because molasses was cheap and shelf-stable, while refined white sugar remained comparatively dear; ginger, imported dried, kept indefinitely and was one of the few spices in constant household use. Cakes of this kind were kept in a covered jar for casual eating, travel and children, and the pound-cake creaming method here marks it as a richer version than the plain water-and-molasses gingerbread of everyday baking.