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Soft Gingerbread
Take one cup of sour milk; one cup of molasses; one teaspoon of soda; one tablespoon of ginger; one tablespoon of vinegar; five tablespoons of melted lard; flour to thicken. Dissolve the soda in the vinegar, add it to the molasses, and stir well. Turn the molasses into the sour milk, stir until well mixed, and add the rest of the ingredients. The success of this bread depends on the amount of flour used being exactly right. The batter should be so thin that the track left by the spoon in stirring disappears at once. When well made the cake is delicious.
A plain molasses gingerbread with no eggs and no sugar, leavened entirely by soda working against sour milk, vinegar and molasses. The original gives no pan, no oven and no time, so those have to be supplied.
- The hinge: batter consistencyThe instruction to add "flour to thicken" only until the spoon's track vanishes at once is the whole recipe. Expect roughly 2 to 2 1/2 cups of flour; stop adding the moment the batter closes over itself, since more flour gives a dry, bricky crumb with nothing but soda to lift it.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, thick and acidic. Use buttermilk cup for cup. Pasteurised milk left out does not sour the same way and should not be substituted; a cup of milk with a tablespoon of lemon juice or vinegar is a workable stand-in.
- Soda and vinegarDissolving the teaspoon of soda in the vinegar and adding it to the molasses starts the gas immediately. The recipe gives no direction on timing, but on that chemistry it is best to mix and bake without letting the batter stand.
- LardFive tablespoons of melted lard is about 65 g. Melted butter or a neutral oil works; butter browns the crust a little more and adds flavour the original did not have.
- MolassesNineteenth-century baking molasses was generally lighter and less bitter than modern blackstrap. Use unsulphured dark molasses or light treacle; blackstrap alone will taste harsh.
- SaltNone is called for. Add 1/2 teaspoon with the flour or the ginger tastes flat.
- Pan, oven and timeA greased 8-inch square pan or a 9-inch round at 350F, 30 to 35 minutes, until the centre springs back. Higher heat sets the crust before this thin batter has risen.
- Yield and servingAbout nine squares. Best warm the day it is baked, with butter; molasses cakes keep well wrapped for two or three days and the ginger deepens overnight.
Soft gingerbread, as distinct from the hard rolled and cut gingerbread sold at fairs, is the American nineteenth-century household cake: molasses for sweetening, sour milk and soda for lift, and no eggs. The chemistry on display is transitional. Baking powder was widely available by the turn of the century, but generations of cooks still trusted the older method of neutralising soda with an acid they could taste, and both sour milk and vinegar are used here.