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Molasses Cup Cakes
1 cup brown sugar 3/4 cup shortening 1 egg, well beaten 1 cup molasses 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon ginger 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon soda 3 cups flour 1 cup boiling water Cream the shortening and sugar together, add egg and molasses, then the dry ingredients, mixed together. Stir in boiling water, and bake in greased muffin pans, in a moderate oven (375 degrees F.) for 30 minutes. Makes 18 cakes. They may be iced, if desired.
A gingerbread batter baked in muffin cups rather than a sheet pan. The method is unusual only in one respect: the boiling water goes in last, and that is what makes the batter behave.
- The boiling waterAdding it at the end thins a very stiff dough into a pourable batter and starts the soda reacting with the molasses immediately. Fill the pans and get them into the oven promptly rather than letting the batter stand.
- OvenThe recipe helpfully gives the number: 375F. That is on the warm side of "moderate" and correct here, since the sugar and molasses want to set before the centers sink. Check at 22 minutes; 30 is the outside limit for a standard muffin cup.
- ShorteningIn this period this usually meant hydrogenated vegetable shortening or lard, though butter was also used. Modern shortening works as written; butter gives better flavor but browns faster, so watch the bottoms.
- MolassesUse unsulphured mild or full-flavor molasses, not blackstrap, which is far more bitter than what these books meant and will fight the brown sugar.
- Soda, no baking powderOne teaspoon of soda is the only leavening, relying entirely on the acidity of the molasses and brown sugar. Sift or whisk it thoroughly through the flour, since an unbroken lump will leave a soapy dark spot.
- Filling the pansGrease well, or use paper liners; molasses batters stick badly. Fill about two-thirds full to get the stated 18 cakes from a standard 12-cup tin plus six more.
- Doneness and keepingA tester should come out clean but the crumb will stay noticeably moist and dark. Like most gingerbread, these improve on the second day if kept covered.
- IcingIf icing them, a plain confectioners' sugar glaze with a little lemon juice suits the spice better than a rich buttercream.
Molasses stayed in American home baking long after white sugar became cheap, partly from habit and partly from economy: it was inexpensive, it kept cakes moist for days, and its acidity let a cook leaven with nothing but a spoonful of soda. Recipes of this type descend from the enormous family of nineteenth-century gingerbreads and "molasses cakes," adapted here to individual muffin tins, which spread through American kitchens as gem pans and muffin pans became standard equipment.