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Gingerbread
½ cup molasses
½ teaspoon soda
½ cup sugar
1 cup flour
½ cup melted fat
1 teaspoon ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon
½ cup sour milk
Nutmeg
1 egg
Mix ingredients in order given, sifting the soda with the flour before adding it. Bake in a slow oven in a greased shallow pan or in muffin-tins. Care must be taken to prevent burning. Gingerbread makes a delicious dessert served with whipped cream.
A soft molasses gingerbread of the sour-milk-and-soda type, baked slow because molasses scorches. The listed quantities are unusual in one respect, noted below.
- Slow ovenBake at 300-325F. Molasses browns and then burns well before the center of a wet batter sets, which is why the original warns about burning.
- Sour milkUse buttermilk, or stir 1½ teaspoons of lemon juice or vinegar into ½ cup of whole milk and let it stand five minutes. Modern pasteurized milk left to sour on the counter spoils rather than clabbers.
- Soda and acidThe half teaspoon of soda is the only leavening, and it works against the molasses and sour milk. Sift it thoroughly through the flour as directed; a pocket of undispersed soda leaves a soapy brown streak.
- Melted fatThe book means lard, shortening or drippings. Melted butter works and tastes better, but it carries water and milk solids, so the crumb will be slightly denser and will color faster.
- The flourOne cup of flour against a cup and a half of liquid ingredients plus an egg gives a pourable batter rather than a dough. Baked in muffin tins it will rise and fall into a moist, pudding-like cake; in a shallow pan it stays low and sticky. Comparable gingerbreads tend to call for considerably more flour for this quantity of liquid, so the single cup may be worth doubling if a sliceable cake is wanted.
- Unmeasured nutmegTake it as a scant ¼ teaspoon, freshly grated. The two teaspoons of cinnamon already dominate; more nutmeg turns the whole thing medicinal.
- SaltNone is listed. A quarter teaspoon sharpens the spice noticeably.
- Yield and testingAbout nine muffin-tin cakes, or one 8-inch square pan. Muffins take roughly 20-25 minutes, a pan 30-35; test with a skewer at the center, since the dark surface gives no useful clue.
This appeared in the era when American gingerbread had largely settled into two forms: the hard rolled ginger cookie and the soft molasses cake baked in a shallow pan, cut in squares and eaten out of hand. Molasses was the cheap sweetener of the nineteenth-century American kitchen, and its acidity made it the natural partner for saleratus and later baking soda, which is why so many gingerbread recipes call for sour milk as well: the leavening depends on that acid. Ginger and cinnamon were among the few spices a modest household kept year-round, both relatively cheap and both shelf-stable. The closing suggestion to serve it with whipped cream lifts a plain, economical bake toward the standing of a proper dessert.