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Molasses Orange Cake
One cup of molasses, one-half cup of butter, one-half cup of water, one egg, one teaspoonful of soda, two cups of flour, use the grated rind and pulp of one orange, or if preferred a teaspoonful of ginger, rub butter over top after removing from oven. To be baked in shallow tin.
A one-egg molasses cake leavened entirely by the soda-and-molasses reaction, baked thin in a sheet pan. The original gives no temperature, time or pan size, so those are the gaps worth filling.
- Pan and yield"Shallow tin" means a sheet or jelly-roll style pan; an 8x8 or 9x9 inch square, or a quarter-sheet, suits this quantity. Expect a cake about an inch thick, cut into 9 to 12 squares.
- OvenThe original gives no temperature or time. A moderate oven, around 350F, suits a thin molasses batter; expect 20 to 25 minutes, when the centre springs back and a straw comes out clean.
- The soda is the whole leaveningThere is no baking powder here. The teaspoon of soda reacts with the acid in the molasses, so mix the batter quickly, get it into the pan and into the oven at once; the rise is largely spent within a few minutes.
- Molasses gradeUse unsulphured dark molasses, not blackstrap, which is far more bitter than what the word meant in a domestic kitchen of this era. A teaspoon of soda to a cup of molasses is the usual proportion; more will taste soapy.
- "Pulp of one orange"Most likely the juice and the broken-up flesh of the segments rather than the whole fruit pith and all; about a quarter cup of juice plus the zest. If you take the ginger option instead, add it with the flour.
- Butter and waterCream the softened butter with the molasses, beat in the egg, then alternate the flour with the half cup of water. The water thins what would otherwise be a stiff batter so it spreads in a shallow pan.
- Butter over the topRubbing a lump of butter over the hot surface as it leaves the oven softens the crust and gives it a gloss. Do it while the pan is still hot, and cut only after the cake has cooled enough to hold its edge.
Molasses was the everyday sweetener of the American kitchen well into the nineteenth century, cheaper than refined sugar, and cake recipes built around it survived long after white sugar became affordable simply because people had grown up on the flavour. The soda-and-molasses pairing here is older than commercial baking powder: cooks learned that the acid in molasses would set off saleratus or bicarbonate of soda on its own, which is why so many gingerbreads and molasses cakes call for soda alone. Citrus was a purchased luxury in most northern households, and grating the rind of a single orange into an otherwise thrifty batter was a common way of dressing up store-cupboard baking.