Home › The Waldorf Kitchen › Molasses Cake
Molasses Cake
Put seven or eight breakfast cupfuls of flour into a large basin and rub in until quite smooth one-half pound of butter; then mix with it one-half pound of sugar and two tablespoonfuls of ground ginger. Dissolve one tablespoonful of bicarbonate of soda in three tablespoonfuls of warm water, stir in with it one breakfast cupful of sour milk together with two breakfast cupfuls of molasses. Work the dough thoroughly. If it is a little too stiff, more water can be added, or if not stiff a little more flour. Put the dough in a buttered cake-tin and bake in rather a quick oven. When cut, the interior should be quite dark.
This is a large, stiff gingerbread rather than a soft batter cake, and it scales up to a full sheet pan. Two things need attention before you start: the size of the cup and the heat of the oven.
- The breakfast cupA breakfast cupful in a turn-of-the-century American kitchen is generally taken as 8 to 10 fluid ounces, and the exact intent here is not recoverable. Treat it as a standard 8-oz cup throughout and keep the proportions consistent rather than mixing measures.
- Scale and yieldSeven to eight cups of flour, a pound of butter and sugar between them, and two cups of molasses make roughly 5 to 6 pounds of dough. That fills a half-sheet pan or two 9x13 tins and gives 24 or more squares. Halve everything for a household batch.
- "Rather a quick oven"A quick oven is usually reckoned at around 400-450F, hotter than a cake of this size and sweetness will comfortably take; the sugars can scorch before the centre sets. Bake at 350F, and check at 35-40 minutes for a shallow pan, longer for a deep tin.
- Sour milkThis means naturally soured raw milk, thick and acidic. Buttermilk is the direct substitute, cup for cup. Pasteurised milk left out does not sour, it spoils.
- The sodaA full tablespoon of bicarbonate is correct here only because the molasses and sour milk supply a great deal of acid. Dissolving it in warm water first, as directed, prevents the bitter yellow streaks that undissolved soda leaves in dark cake.
- MolassesUse unsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap, which is bitter and will fight the ginger. Light or "mild" molasses gives a paler, sweeter cake than the dark interior the recipe asks for.
- Working the doughThis is a rubbed-in dough, closer to a thick gingerbread paste than a batter. The recipe does say to work it thoroughly, but the aim is even combination rather than developed gluten; mix until no dry flour remains.
- DonenessThe crumb should be dark and moist, not dry. A skewer that comes out with a few damp crumbs is the right point; molasses cake firms considerably as it cools and keeps well wrapped for several days.
Molasses gingerbread of this kind was a long-established and inexpensive American cake, cheap enough for a farm kitchen and sturdy enough to travel. The technique here is pre-baking-powder in spirit: butter rubbed into flour by hand, and bicarbonate of soda activated by the acid in sour milk and molasses, a pairing common since saleratus came into general use in the nineteenth century. Oscar Tschirky, the Waldorf's maitre d'hotel, compiled his 1896 book from the hotel's working repertoire and from the broader domestic tradition, which is why a plain ginger cake sits alongside far grander dishes.