I spent some time at the library today between snowstorms. One of the books I checked out was a reprint of Marion Harland’s 1871 book, Common Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery.
The only gingerbread recipe I’ve ever baked was that made famous by Laura Ingalls Wilder. You’ve all seen it:
1 cup brown sugar blended with 1/2 cup lard or other shortening.
1 cup molasses mixed well with this.
2 teaspoons baking soda in 1 cup boiling water. (Be sure cup is full of water after foam is run off into cake mixture).
Mix all well.
To 3 cups of flour have added one teaspoon each of the following spices: ginger, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, cloves; and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Sift all into cake mixture and mix well.
Add lastly 2 well-beaten eggs. The mixture should be quite thin. Bake in a moderate oven for thirty minutes.
Raisins and/or candied fruit may be added and a chocolate frosting adds to the goodness.
In looking through old cookbooks, however, I find recipe after recipe for gingerbread in which the only spice included is ginger. A spiced gingerbread contained the additional spices. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I won’t be decorating for Christmas this year, but I baked a lovely pan of gingerbread tonight. So if it doesn’t exactly look Christmasy here, it sure smells like it. If you don’t want to bake gingerbread, but want the smell, you can always simmer ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice in water on the stove.
The photo above is of a gingerbread log cabin I made a few years ago. I used triple amounts of all spices and made a hole in the back so I could light it from within using a nightlight fixture. I didn’t use Laura’s recipe for the log cabin; I used one meant for gingerbread houses.
