SPICED GINGERBREAD.—Sift into a deep pan a pound and a half of flour, and cut up in it half a pound of the best fresh butter. Rub them together, with your hands, till thoroughly incorporated. Then add half a pound of brown sugar, crushed fine with the rolling-pin; a table-spoonful of mixed spice, consisting of equal quantities of powdered cloves, mace, and cinnamon. Also, a table-spoonful of ground ginger, and two table-spoonfuls of carraway seeds. Mix the whole together, and wet it with a pint of West India molasses. Dissolve a small tea-spoonful of pearlash or soda in a very little warm water. Mix it into the other ingredients. Spread some flour on your paste-board, take the dough out of the pan, flour your hands, and knead the dough till it ceases entirely to be sticky. Roll it out into a very thick square sheet; cut it into long straight slips; twist every two slips together, rounding off the ends nicely. Lay them (not too closely) in buttered square pans, and bake them well. As gingerbread burns easily, take care not to have the oven too hot. Instead of forming it into twisted strips, you may cut the sheet of gingerbread-dough into round cakes with the edge of a tumbler, which, as you proceed, must be frequently dipped in flour.
CARRAWAY GINGERBREAD.—Cut up half a pound of fresh butter in a pint of West India molasses and warm them together slightly, till the butter is quite soft. Then stir them well, and add, gradually, a pound of good brown sugar, a table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon, and two heaped table-spoonfuls of ground ginger, or three, if the ginger is not very strong. Sift two pounds or two quarts of flour. Beat four eggs till very thick and light, and stir them, gradually, into the mixture, in turn with the flour, and five or six large table-spoonfuls of carraway seeds, a little at a time. Dissolve a very small tea-spoonful of pearlash or soda in as much lukewarm water as will cover it. Then stir it in at the last. Stir all very hard. Transfer it to a buttered tin pan with straight sides, and bake it in a loaf in a moderate oven. It will require a great deal of baking.
MOLASSES GINGERBREAD.—Mix together a quart of West India molasses, and a pint of milk. Cut up in them a pound of fresh butter. Set the pan on a stove, or in a warm place till the butter becomes soft enough to stir and mix well into the molasses and milk. They must be merely warmed but not made hot. Then stir in a small teacup of ginger, and a table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Add, gradually, a little at a time, three pounds of sifted flour. The whole should be a thick batter. Lastly, stir in a large tea-spoonful of soda, or a smaller one of pearlash or sal-eratus, dissolved in a very little lukewarm water. Bake the mixture either in little tins, or in a large loaf. If the latter, it will require very long baking; as long as a black-cake.
MOLASSES CAKE.—Cut up a quarter of a pound of fresh butter into a pint of West India molasses. Warm it just sufficiently to soften the butter, and make it mix easily. Stir it well into the molasses, and add a table-spoonful of powdered cinnamon. Beat three eggs very light, and stir them, gradually, into the mixture, in turn with barely enough of sifted flour (not more than a pint and a half) to make it about as thick as pound-cake batter. Add, at the last, a small or level tea-spoonful of pearlash, or a full one of soda, dissolved in a very little warm water. Butter some small tin cake-pans, or patty-pans, put in the mixture, and set them immediately into the oven, which must not be too hot, as all cakes made with molasses are peculiarly liable to scorch on the outside.
SUGAR CAKE.—Sift two pounds of flour into a pan, and cut up in it a pound of fresh butter. Rub with your hands the butter into the flour till it is thoroughly mixed. Then rub in a pound of sugar, and a grated nutmeg. Wet the whole with half a pint of rich milk (or a jill of rose-water, and a jill of milk) mixed with a well-beaten egg. Add, at the last, a very small tea-spoonful of pearlash or soda, dissolved in a little vinegar or warm water. Roll out the dough thick, and beat it well on both sides with the rolling-pin. Then roll it thin, and cut it into square cakes, notching the edges with a knife. Put them into a shallow pan slightly buttered, (taking care not to place them too near, lest they run into each other,) and bake them a light brown.