Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock's Dark Molasses Gingerbread

Sunday morning, pad quietly into the kitchen. Kettle on, cupboards open. Pull out the box of cake flour, just the right amount still in the bag, the bottle of inky molasses, soda, baking powder. Two eggs from the fridge, cold and smooth in my hands; spices from the freezer, their bottles frosting immediately in the warm kitchen.

Baking first thing in the morning, before the first cup of tea, before opening the door to get the paper, before even being entirely awake, is one of life's small pleasures. One of my life's small pleasures. I love the silent, solitary work in the kitchen, the concentration, the satisfaction at seeing a few simple ingredients come together under my hands and blossom into something else entirely.

It so happens that the best recipes for this kind of early morning venture are plain and homey ones. They have to be. I'm not interested in four-layer cakes at 9:00 am on a Sunday, or in rolled fondant, or pastry cream. What I revel in making are recipes that dirty just one bowl, that surprise you with their ease, that come laden with history, the knowledge that they've been made a hundred thousand times before, in thousands of kitchens, by thousands of slightly sleepy home cooks who don't have the luxury to worry about whether or not the cake will rise or turn out as it should.

This recipe seems to have been made for this purpose - you whisk together the dry ingredients: cake flour and leaveners for lightness and a mix of cloves, ginger and cinnamon for warmth and flavor. Then you melt a stick of butter in boiling water and whisk that, along with a couple eggs, into the flour. That is it. Quite literally. What results is a dark and moodily cracked cake that, if left to its own devices for a day, gets moister and more complex, and if eaten while still warm, is a very good snacking cake, best if served with whipped cream to round out the hard molasses edge.

The cake is from The Gift of Southern Cooking by the late, great Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock, which doesn't have the same bewitching lilt as Miss Lewis's The Taste of Country Cooking, but is packed with information and interesting recipes from a region that I used to know very little about culinarily. The baking recipes, in particular, are just the kinds of things I like to think about making early on a weekend morning, while the neighborhood still sleeps and the day stretches languidly, full of promise, ahead of me.

For a short film on Edna Lewis, go over to Gourmet's website, right here. The first photo you see of her, a black-and-white one with her in profile at 0:21, kills me.

Dark Molasses Gingerbread
Serves 8

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, more for pan
2 cups cake flour, more for pan
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups dark molasses
Freshly whipped cream, for serving

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour an 8-inch round baking pan. Sift flour, baking soda and baking powder into a large mixing bowl. Blend in spices and salt with a wire whisk.

2. In a small pan, bring 1 cup water to a boil. Melt 1/2 cup butter in it, then whisk water into flour mixture. Beat eggs and add to mixture, along with molasses. Whisk until well blended. Pour into pan.

3. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a skewer plunged into center comes out with no trace of raw batter. Interior will be moist. Serve warm with freshly whipped cream.

Note: This cake is also delicious the day after it is baked. The spices meld and the texture gets more like a steamed pudding.

Comments

[Great Food Made Simple]

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[Debo Hobo]

Cakes and recipes remind me of when I was a kid and I would get out the stool and look for all the ingredients that magically were alway there and then I would follow the recipe step by step and present my mother with my creation and the mess in the kitchen.

I knew I would always find something very homespun with in the pages of Fanny Farmer's cookbooks.

Thanks for the memory:)

[Mark Scarbrough]

OK, I used to make gingerbread as a standard, Saturday morning breakfast--and then I lost my favorite recipe in, well, a divorce and a move and a change in life and, well, the general crap that is existence. Anyway, this recipe just shot through my memory as "the thing," the Ding an sich of gingerbread. Guess what I'm making this weekend?

[natalia]

one of life's small pleasures indeed.

[Pete at Kitchen Decanted]

Gonna give this one a shot as well. Got a severe craving for some gingerbread and black coffee - sweet, spicy, rich and bitter...sounds too good not to try.

Had crumble already this week though so it might have to wait until Easter. Thanks for the recipe.

[Dirk]

I usually try to stay away from deserts, but this recipes makes it VERY difficult. I may have to break the rules...

[dawn]

must try this flavor-combo...must

[ann's daughter]

Wednesday Chef & readers, I have a question: I want to make ginger-y cupcakes next weekend, with whipped cream/cream cheese frosting. I'm torn! Should I make Edna's cake as above, or Dorie's ginger & chocolate combo [http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2007/12/baking-with-dorie-spicy-cake-christmas-chocolate-gingerbread-recipe.html]?

Please advise!

[malibu4]

I tried to make this cake with blackstrap molasses and it turned out horribly! i take it you used regular molasses?

[Luisa]

Ann's daughter - I wouldn't turn this into cupcakes. It's too...plain? Simple? Especially if you plan to frost them. I think the beauty of this cake is that it's so homey and ungussied-up.

Malibu4 - yes, I used regular molasses. As a rule, you should only use blackstrap when a recipe specifically calls for the stuff. I'm so sorry it was horrible.

[Jenny R.]

This gingerbread was so delicious last night with a quick strawberry rhubarb sauce and whipped cream. I also enjoyed it after lunch today, and I'm seriously thinking to make it again for a brunch on Sunday.
I'm a new reader (linked from Orangette) and I love your writing style.

[Esther]

I can smell gingerbread as I read your post. What a great recipe. Perfect with a cup of earl grey tea.

[lo]

i just made this.. just had a slice and it is sooo delish. and so easy.
thanks! :)

[Patricia Kline]

Hello,
Love your blog! Question about the gingerbread cake:
Wondering why you used cake flour instead of bleached flour as called for in original recipe by Edna Lewis and in the NYT article? Also, original recipe used much more ginger -- 1/2 tsp vs. 1TB in original recipe. I know NYTimes article called for less ginger.
Any thoughts on that switch as well?
Thanks so much!

[Luisa]

Patricia - I used cake flour because it was all I had. In the cookbook (The Gift of Southern Cooking), the recipe notes that if you don't have bleached flour, to reduce the amount of all-purpose by 1/3 cup. So I figured I could swap in cake flour, but use the full amount and in fact, it was fine. As for the spices, I don't know why the NY Times changed the amount of ginger called for.

[Trey West]

I love cake.... this looks pretty easy to make. Do you know of any calorie counts for it? I just started The 100 Calorie Diet so I need to know. :)

[Akila]

This looks wonderful. Scott Peacock has a restaurant in Atlanta and his chocolate cake is one of the top 3 chocolate cakes I have ever eaten. At Watershed (the restaurant), it goes by the name "Really Good Chocolate Cake." I seriously think he is a baking (small cap) god, so I will absolutely need to try this.

[rooney]

This has brought back such wonderful memories of my "aunt" thelma. she would always make me gingerbread (I'm sure she used Duncan Hines mix) and top it with whipped cream and slices of bananas. This was almost fifty years ago. Thanks for stirring the wonderful memory. I'm not a great fan of bananas, but gingerbread isn't complete without them!

[lisa]

So nice to read someone as enamored with Ms. Lewis as I am!