Molasses Gingerbread

[pegkerr]

I posted this as a comment in response to a request for recipes including molasses and thought I'd post it here, too, since it is one of my all-time favorite recipes and perfect for this cozy time of year. [Note: I often double this recipe, using a 13x9 pan]

This is an incredibly good recipe I got from pameladean

Molasses Gingerbread

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 TB ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda, dissolved in 2 TB hot water
3/4 cup cold water
1/4 cup granulated sugar to sprinkle on top of batter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease and lightly flour an 8x8 inch baking pan.

Combine the butter and molasses in a large mixing bowl and beat until well mixed. In a small bowl, mix together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, coriander, and salt, stirring with a fork to blend. Stire into the butter mixture. Beat well. Add the baking soda dissolved in water, stir and blend. Beat in the cold water and mix well. Spoon into the pan and sprinkle the sugar on top. Bake for about 20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Makes one 8x8 inch pan.

Comments

[handworn.livejournal.com]

I see this is "modern" gingerbread-- that is, a recipe under 200 years old. Before baking soda began to be used in the 1790s, gingerbread was flat, like what you make gingerbread men out of.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I copied the entire cookbook page from Pamela, and here is what it says before the actual recipe:

Molasses Gingerbread: from American Cookery by Amelia Simmons (1796)

Marion Cunningham, author of the Fannie Farmer Baking Book, edited and tested this gingerbread created by Amelia Simmons, who described herself as "an American orphan" and who wrote American Cookery, the first American cookbook. This was one of five gingerbread recipes in American Cookery, a very slim volume, which is some indication of how beloved gingerbread was in eighteenth-century Amerca. The original recipe appears below and, lest you have trouble following it, Marion's edited version follows [Peg: Marion's is the one I posted]. The pearl ash in the first recipe is potassium bicarbonate, which American women made at home from fireplace ashes. It was later replaced by baking soda.

"One tablespoon of cinnamon, one spoonful ginger, some coriander or alspice, put to four teaspoons pearl ash, dissolved in half pint of water, four pound flour, one quart molasses, six ounces butter, if in summer rub the butter, if in winter, warm the butter and molasses and pour to the spiced flour...knead well till stiff, the more the better, the lighter and whiter it will be; bake brisk fifteen minutes; don't scorch; before it is put in, wash it with whites and sugar beat together."