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Molasses Cake
Mrs. Snider.
One cup of butter, one cup of brown sugar, one cup of molasses, one cup of sweet milk, three cups of flour, four eggs, one and a-half teaspoons of cream tartar, one teaspoon of soda, two pounds of raisins chopped fine, nutmeg; bake in a slow oven.
A dark, heavily fruited molasses cake of the sort meant to keep for a week or more in a tin. The proportions look odd to modern eyes because the fruit, not the batter, is the point.
- Two pounds of raisins is not a typoAgainst three cups of flour, the fruit comes to roughly as much weight as everything else in the bowl; the result is far closer to a fruit cake than a layer cake. Chopping them fine, as directed, helps keep them suspended rather than settling into a seam at the bottom.
- A slow oven means 300-325FWith this much sugar, molasses and fruit, anything hotter scorches the outside long before the middle sets. Expect 1.5 to 2 hours in a deep pan; test with a skewer in the centre.
- Sweet milkSimply fresh whole milk, specified to distinguish it from the sour milk or buttermilk that many cakes of the period called for. Do not substitute buttermilk here — the leavening is already balanced.
- The soda and cream of tartarTogether they act as homemade baking powder, but molasses is itself acidic and will react with the soda as well. Mix and get the cake into the oven promptly; a batter left standing will have spent much of its lift on the counter.
- Pan and liningNo pan size is given. A deep 9-inch round or an 8-inch square, lined with parchment and, for a long slow bake, wrapped outside with a band of newspaper or foil, keeps the edges from drying while the centre finishes.
- Dredge the fruitToss the chopped raisins in a spoonful of the measured flour before folding them in. The original assumes the cook knows this; without it, two pounds of sticky fruit will clump.
- NutmegNo quantity given. Freshly grated, a teaspoon is not too much for a cake this size; half that suits most modern palates.
- Yield and keepingAbout 20 to 24 substantial slices. Like most heavy fruit cakes it improves after a day or two, wrapped closely and kept cool.
Molasses cakes run through nineteenth-century North American cookery because molasses was the cheap sweetener — a by-product of sugar refining, sold by the barrel and kept in a jug by the stove long after white sugar became affordable. This version, contributed by a Mrs. Snider, sits at the expensive end of the genre: four eggs, a cup of butter and two pounds of raisins mark it as something richer than everyday eating. Recipes in such books were printed under the contributor's name and assumed a reader who already knew what size pan to use and how long to bake, which is why so many of them, like this one, stop at the list of ingredients and a single word about the oven.