Molasses Cakes
1 cup molasses 1/2 cup sugar 1/2 cup shortening 1/2 cup boiling water 3 cups flour 3 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder 1 teaspoon salt 1/2 teaspoon soda 2 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg 1 teaspoon cloves 1 cup stale bread crumbs Mix molasses, sugar, melted shortening and boiling water together; add flour, baking powder, salt, soda and spices which have been sifted together; add bread crumbs; mix well. Drop by spoonfuls on greased baking sheet and bake in moderate oven 10 to 12 minutes.
Small Fancy Cakes. I 1/2 cup shortening 1 cup granulated or powdered sugar yolks of 3 eggs 1/2 cup milk 2 cups flour 2 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder Cream shortening, add sugar slowly and beat well; add yolks of eggs which have been beaten until thick; add milk a little at a time and flour which has been sifted with baking powder; divide batter in half and add to one half one teaspoon lemon juice and the grated rind of half a lemon; to the other half of batter add two squares (two ounces) unsweetened melted chocolate, one teaspoon vanilla. Bake in shallow greased pan or in very small individual tins in hot oven about 15 minutes. If a large pan is used, cut cakes into fancy shapes. In either case a very small amount of batter should be put in each pan so that the cakes are less than an inch thick when baked. Spread with colored or marshmallow icing.
Small Fancy Cakes. II 1/2 cup shortening 1 cup granulated sugar 2/3 cup water 1 teaspoon flavoring 2 cups flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 3 teaspoons Royal Baking Powder whites of 3 eggs Cream shortening and sugar together until very light; add water slowly almost drop by drop, and beat constantly; add flavoring; stir in the flour, salt and baking powder which have been sifted together twice; fold in whites of eggs which have been beaten until stiff and dry. Put about a teaspoonful of batter into small individual cake tins and bake in hot oven 10 to 15 minutes, or bake in shallow pan and cut as in above recipe. A very easy and economical way to cut cake is diagonally across making small diamond shaped pieces. Spread with any icing desired.
Three recipes sit on this page: a molasses drop cake and two versions of small fancy cakes cut from a shallow sheet. All three are written for a cook who owns Royal Baking Powder and a coal range, so the oven language and a few of the ingredients need translating.
- Oven temperatures"Moderate oven" for the molasses cakes is about 350-375F. "Hot oven" for both fancy cake recipes is about 400-425F, which suits a thin sheet baked in 10 to 15 minutes.
- ShorteningIn a 1920s Royal book this means any solid fat: butter, lard, or a hydrogenated vegetable shortening. Butter gives the best flavour in the fancy cakes; the molasses drops are forgiving and take anything.
- The bread crumbsStale bread crumbs here are dry crumbs from a grated loaf, not soft fresh ones, and they are structural as much as thrifty. They absorb the molasses and boiling water and keep the drops from spreading flat. Fresh crumbs will make a wetter, cakier result.
- Soda and baking powder togetherThe half teaspoon of soda is there to neutralise the acid in the molasses; the baking powder supplies most of the lift. Do not drop one for the other. Molasses acidity varies by grade, but the balance still works.
- Order of mixing the molasses batterMelt the shortening before combining it with the molasses, sugar and boiling water, or it will seize into lumps. The mixture should be warm and fluid when the dry ingredients go in.
- Adding water drop by dropIn Small Fancy Cakes II the water goes into the creamed fat and sugar very slowly for a reason: added quickly it breaks the emulsion and the batter curdles. Beat constantly and take a full minute or two over it.
- Thickness of the sheetThe instruction that the baked cake be under an inch thick is the one to obey. These are meant as petits fours, iced and cut small; a thicker sheet turns them into ordinary sponge squares and throws off the baking time.
- YieldThe recipe gives no yield or pan size. Expect several dozen small drop cakes from the molasses batter, and a similar number of small pieces from either fancy cake batter once a thin sheet is cut up, depending entirely on the size cut.
The New Royal Cook Book was a promotional publication of the Royal Baking Powder Company, which is why the leavening is named by brand in every list while flour and sugar are not. Molasses cakes belong to an older American baking tradition in which molasses, not refined sugar, was the everyday sweetener, and the cup of stale bread crumbs is a straightforward piece of household economy of the sort that survived in print well past the point when it was strictly necessary. The two "small fancy cakes" recipes point in the other direction, toward the tea table and the iced petit four: the same batter divided, one half flavoured with lemon and the other with chocolate, then baked thin and cut into diamonds. Splitting a single batter in two for variety, and cutting on the diagonal to avoid waste, are both habits of a kitchen where cake was made at home rather than bought.