Home › Recipes › Brown Ginger Cookies, Good Common
Brown Ginger Cookies, Good Common
8 ounces of butter. 8 ounces of sugar. 8 ounces of black molasses. 4 eggs. 2 ounces of ground ginger. Half cupful of milk or water. 4 teaspoonfuls of baking powder. 2 pounds of flour, or enough to make soft dough. Mix the ingredients in the order they are printed in. Roll out and cut with a small cutter. Ginger Nuts without Eggs. 8 ounces of butter. 8 ounces of sugar. 8 ounces of molasses. 2 teaspoonfuls of ground ginger. 2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Flour to make soft dough. Warm the butter, sugar and molasses together and mix them well, when nearly cold again add the ginger, powder and flour. Roll pieces of the dough in long thin rolls and cut off in pieces large as cherries. Place on buttered pans with plenty of room between. Bake light.
Sugar Cakes without Eggs. 8 ounces of butter. 8 ounces of sugar. 8 ounces of water-a cupful. 2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder. 1 1/2 pounds of flour to mix, and more to roll out. Mix in the order they are printed. The softer the dough can be handled the better the cakes will be. Sift sugar over before cutting out.
Three related bakery formulas given by weight, in the shorthand a professional pastry cook of the 1890s would have expected. None gives an oven temperature or a time, so the numbers below are what current practice supplies.
- Weights into modern terms8 ounces of butter is two sticks; 8 ounces of granulated sugar is about 1 1/8 cups; 8 ounces of molasses is about 2/3 cup (molasses is heavier than water, so a cupful weighs closer to 11 or 12 ounces). The 2 pounds of flour in the first recipe is roughly 7 cups, but treat it as a ceiling — the instruction "or enough to make soft dough" governs.
- The ginger is not a typoTwo ounces of ground ginger comes to something over half a cup, and it is what makes these brown ginger cookies rather than plain molasses cookies. If you are used to a teaspoon or two, start at 1 ounce; the second recipe, by contrast, uses only 2 teaspoonfuls.
- OvenBake all three at 350–375F. The ginger nuts, being small, need about 8–10 minutes; "bake light" most likely means pull them while still pale, though in period bakeshop language it can also refer to a light (quick) oven. Either way, molasses doughs darken fast at the edges.
- Black molassesMost likely ordinary dark cane molasses; period usage was not consistent, and "black molasses" was sometimes applied to the darkest grades as well. A modern blackstrap will read as harsh and mineral against this much ginger, so a plain dark molasses is the safer choice.
- Baking powderPeriod baking powders were single-acting rather than double-acting like most of what is sold now, and strength varied by brand. Four teaspoonfuls to two pounds of flour is about right today; do not increase it.
- Softest dough you can handleThe note on the sugar cakes may reasonably be applied to all three: a soft, barely manageable dough makes a tender cookie. Chill the dough 30 minutes rather than adding more flour if it fights the rolling pin.
- The ginger nutsWarming butter, sugar and molasses together and cooling before the flour goes in gives a dough that ropes out cleanly. Cherry-sized pieces spread as they bake, hence "plenty of room"; leave an inch or more between them.
- YieldThe first formula, cut small, gives something on the order of eight to ten dozen — bakery scale. Halve or quarter it for a home kitchen.
The American Pastry Cook appears to have been written for men working bakeshop counters, which would explain why these formulas arrive as bare lists of weights with no oven setting: a pastry cook knew his own oven and needed only the ratios. "Good common" is generally understood as trade language rather than modesty, as opposed to the fancy article, and the trio here shows how a single family of recipes was varied for the case: heavily spiced brown cookies, small round ginger nuts, and plain sugar cakes. The two eggless versions likely reflect a period when eggs were seasonal and priced accordingly, and a baker who could turn out a saleable cookie without them would have had an advantage in winter. Molasses is often said to have served the same economy, being cheaper than refined sugar through much of the nineteenth century and lingering in American baking long after sugar prices fell.