Ginger Puffs
1/2 cup molasses 1/2 cup sugar 1 egg beaten 1/2 cup warm water 1/2 tsp. Slade's ginger 1 tbsp. shortening 2 cups flour sifted with 1 level tsp. soda and 1/4 tsp. salt Bake in moderate oven in small tins or oblong tin and serve hot with butter or whipped cream.
— Ada F. Nickerson
A plain molasses gingerbread batter, thin enough to pour, baked in muffin tins. The original assumes you know how to combine it; the order is the usual one — liquids and sugar first, then the sifted dry ingredients.
- Oven temperatureA moderate oven is conventionally taken as about 350F. Small tins should take roughly 18-22 minutes; a single oblong pan will want longer, on the order of 30-35.
- Slade's gingerD. & L. Slade Co. of Boston was a well-known New England spice packer, and cookbooks of this era often named the brand. Any ground ginger works; if yours has been open a year, use closer to a full teaspoon.
- ShorteningIn 1900s New England this could mean lard, butter, or a mixture of the two rather than the hydrogenated tub product. Melted butter gives good flavour, and one tablespoon is all the fat in the recipe — the molasses is doing much of the tenderising.
- Molasses and sodaThe teaspoon of soda is there to neutralise the acid in the molasses as much as to leaven. Use unsulphured baking molasses rather than blackstrap, which is more bitter and will throw the balance off.
- Warm waterWarm, not hot. It loosens the molasses so it blends; very hot water risks setting the beaten egg.
- Batter consistencyThis produces a thin, pourable batter closer to a muffin than a cake. Fill small tins about two-thirds full and do not beat once the flour is in — a few strokes past smooth is enough.
- YieldAbout 12 standard muffin-tin puffs, or one small oblong pan.
- ServingThese are meant to be eaten hot from the oven with butter. Reheating leftovers suits them better than serving them cold.
Molasses gingerbread was an everyday sweet of New England kitchens long before layer cakes were common, and it survived into twentieth-century church cookbooks because it is cheap, keeps a household in something sweet on little butter or sugar, and forgives a cook working without a thermometer. The "puff" here probably refers to its being baked in gem or muffin tins rather than a loaf, a habit that spread as pressed-tin bakeware became cheaper in the late 1800s. The reference to Slade's ginger points to Boston: D. & L. Slade Co. sold spices and extracts across New England, and contributors to books like this one often wrote in the brand they trusted, which is one of the more useful things such volumes record. Philathea cookbooks were fundraising collections compiled by Philathea classes, the young women's Bible study classes attached to Baptist and other Protestant Sunday schools, and recipes signed with a member's name — here Ada F. Nickerson — were the standard format.