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Spice Cake (One cup molasses one cup)
One cup molasses, one cup of sugar, two-thirds cup of butter, one cup of sour milk, three cups of flour, two eggs, two teaspoonfuls nutmeg, two teaspoonfuls cinnamon, one teaspoonful cloves, one and one-half teaspoonfuls of soda. Put molasses, butter and sugar together, yolks of eggs, milk and soda, whites of eggs; measure flour before sifting.
A plain molasses-and-sour-milk cake of the kind that filled a cake box between bakings. The method line is telegraphic, and the original gives neither pan, oven nor time.
- The hinge: sour milk and sodaThe 1½ teaspoons of soda are neutralised by the acid in the sour milk and the molasses; sweet milk will leave a soapy, brown-speckled crumb. Use cultured buttermilk, or milk soured with a tablespoon of vinegar or lemon juice per cup and left to stand ten minutes.
- MolassesPeriod molasses was generally a lighter cane syrup, closest to today's unsulphured light or dark molasses. Blackstrap is far more bitter and will throw the flavour off.
- Reading the methodThe list is the order of addition, not a set of separate steps: cream butter with sugar and molasses, beat in the yolks, then alternate the sour milk (with the soda stirred into it) and the flour, and fold the stiffly beaten whites in last.
- Measure flour before siftingThis instruction is deliberate and it matters. Scoop and level three cups unsifted, roughly 13 to 14 oz or 380-400 g; sifting first would give noticeably less flour and a wetter batter.
- Butter and saltTwo-thirds cup is about 5⅓ oz or 150 g. Butter of the period was commonly salted; with modern unsalted butter add half a teaspoon of salt.
- SpicesTwo teaspoons each of nutmeg and cinnamon plus a teaspoon of cloves is assertive by current standards. Freshly grated nutmeg at that quantity will dominate; three-quarters of the stated nutmeg and cloves is closer to the intended balance.
- Pan and ovenThe batter fits a 9 x 13 in pan or two 8 in rounds. The original specifies no oven or time; 350F/175C for about 35-40 minutes for the sheet, 25-30 for layers, suits it. Molasses cakes brown early, so test with a skewer rather than by colour.
- YieldAbout 16 squares. It keeps better than a butter cake without molasses, improving on the second day if wrapped closely.
Sour milk cakes belong to the era before reliable commercial baking powder was universal in home kitchens, when the leavening came from soda meeting an acid already in the larder: buttermilk left from churning, milk that had turned in a cool pantry, or the molasses itself. Molasses was the cheap sweetener of the American nineteenth century, and "spice cake" in books of this period often means a molasses cake carrying nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves rather than the paler creamed cakes made with white sugar alone, though the practice varied and many contemporary spice cakes used brown or white sugar with no molasses at all. Its place in a chapter called Dainty Dishes says less about delicacy than about how such collections were assembled -- everyday standbys sat beside company fare, and a cook was expected to supply the pan, the oven and the timing from her own judgement. The one thing the writer would not leave to judgement was the flour measurement, which is the difference between a tender cake and a heavy one.