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Soft Gingerbread
6 ozs. (3/4 cup) butter 6 ozs. (3/4 cup) sugar 2 teaspoonfuls powdered cinnamon 1/2 pint (I cup) milk (sour 1/4 teaspoonful grated nutpreferred) meg 1/2 pint (I cup) molasses 2 eggs 1 teaspoonful baking soda 3 tablespoonfuls hot water 11 ozs. (2¾ cups) flour 2 teaspoonfuls powdered ginger Cream the butter and the sugar together, then add the eggs well beaten, milk, molasses, spices, flour, and the soda dissolved in the hot water. Mix well, turn into a buttered and floured shallow earthenware dish. Bake in a moderate oven for three-quarters of an hour.
A plain molasses gingerbread baked in a shallow earthenware dish rather than a tin. The proportions are generous with butter and molasses, so the crumb stays damp for days.
- Ingredient list, sorted outThe full list is: 6 oz (3/4 cup) butter, 6 oz (3/4 cup) sugar, 1 cup milk (sour preferred), 1 cup molasses, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in 3 tablespoons hot water, 11 oz (2 3/4 cups) flour, 2 teaspoons ground ginger, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg.
- Moderate ovenThe book gives no temperatures; 'moderate' is conventionally read as somewhere around 350F. The stated three-quarters of an hour suits a shallow dish; a skewer in the centre should come out clean and the top should spring back.
- Sour milkThe recipe prefers sour milk because its acid reacts with the soda for extra lift. Modern pasteurised milk will not sour usefully on the counter. Use buttermilk, or stir a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar into a cup of milk and let it stand ten minutes.
- Molasses, not blackstrapUse unsulphured dark molasses; blackstrap is bitter and will fight the ginger. Golden syrup is too mild on its own.
- The soda goes in lastDissolving the soda in hot water and adding it at the end is deliberate. Once it hits the acidic molasses and sour milk it begins working immediately, so get the batter into the dish and into the oven without delay.
- Earthenware behaves differentlyA stoneware or earthenware dish heats slowly and holds heat, so the edges set gently and the centre may need the full time. Butter and flour it thoroughly, and let the cake cool at least twenty minutes in the dish before cutting, or it will tear.
- Batter consistencyThis is a pourable batter, closer to a thick pancake batter than a cake dough. If it seems stiff, the flour was measured heavily; a little extra milk is harmless.
- YieldAbout 12 to 16 squares, depending on the size of the dish. Best on the second day, served plain or with whipped cream or applesauce.
Soft gingerbread, cut in squares from a shallow dish, is the American branch of a family that also produced hard gingerbread cakes and moulded gingerbread figures. The softening agent is molasses, cheap and abundant in the northeastern United States through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries by way of the Caribbean sugar trade, and the leavening is soda reacting with the acid in both the molasses and the soured milk, a pairing that predates commercial baking powder and long outlived it in gingerbread recipes.