FLEMINGTON GINGERBREAD.—Stir together till quite light, a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, and a quarter of a pound of brown sugar. Then mix in half a pint of West India molasses. Sift rather less than a pint and a half of flour. Beat four eggs till very light, and stir them gradually into the mixture, alternately with the sifted flour. Add a heaping table-spoonful of ginger, and a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Stir all well. Dissolve a level tea-spoonful of soda or pearlash in as much warm water as will melt it; then stir it in at the last. Put the mixture into a buttered tin-pan, (either square or round,) set it immediately into the oven, which must be brisk but not too hot; and bake it well. When you think it done, probe it to the bottom with a knife or a broom-twig, stuck down into the centre; and do not take the cake from the oven unless the knife comes out clean and dry. It requires long baking.
GINGER CRACKERS.—Mix together in a deep pan, a pint of West India molasses; half a pound of butter; and a quarter of a pound of brown sugar; two large table-spoonfuls of ginger; a tea-spoonful of powdered cinnamon; a small tea-spoonful of pearlash or soda, dissolved in a little warm water; and sufficient sifted flour to make a dough just stiff enough to roll out conveniently. Let the whole be well incorporated into a large lump. Knead it till it leaves your hands clean; then beat it hard with a rolling-pin, which will make it crisp when baked. Divide the dough, and roll it out into sheets half an inch thick. Cut it into cakes with a tin cutter about the usual size of a cracker-biscuit, or with the edge of a teacup dipped frequently into flour to prevent its sticking. Lay the cakes at regular distances in square pans slightly buttered. Set them directly into a moderately brisk oven, and bake them well, first pricking them with a fork.
Ginger crackers are excellent on a sea voyage. If made exactly as above they will keep many weeks.
In greasing all cake-pans use only the best fresh butter: otherwise the outside of a thick cake will taste disagreeably, and the whole of a thin cake will have an unpleasant flavour.
SEA-VOYAGE GINGERBREAD.—Sift two pounds of flour into a pan, and cut up in it a pound and a quarter of fresh butter; rub the butter well into the flour, and then mix in a pint of West India molasses and a pound of the best brown sugar. Beat eight eggs till very light. Stir into the beaten egg two glasses or a jill of brandy. Add also to the egg a teacup-full of ground ginger, and a table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, with a tea-spoonful of soda melted in a little warm water. Wet the flour, &c., with this mixture till it becomes a soft dough. Sprinkle a little flour on your paste-board, and with a broad knife spread portions of the mixture thickly and smoothly upon it. The thickness must be equal all through; therefore spread it carefully and evenly, as the dough will be too soft to roll out. Then with the edge of a tumbler dipped in flour, cut it out into round cakes. Have ready square pans, slightly buttered; lay the cakes in them sufficiently far apart to prevent their running into each other when baked. Set the pans into a brisk oven, and bake the cakes well, seeing that they do not burn.
You may cut them out small with the lid of a cannister (or something similar) the usual size of gingerbread nuts.
These cakes will keep during a long voyage, and are frequently carried to sea. Many persons find highly-spiced gingerbread a preventive to sea-sickness.