Mother Orne's Molasses Gingerbread

We're once again survived Christmas at Fort Steilacoom, and I have once again attempted a period gingerbread receipt to serve our volunteers. This year, I was looking for a recipe that would work well with my gingerbread mold, and really let the picture show through.

At Quin's recommendation, I tried making Mother Orne's receipt (approximately dated 1817-1840s), from Sally Fiske Rope Orne's (1795-1876) Recipe Book. The original in now in the Peabody Essex Museum, and they have a very nice blog post about Sally, her family home, and this recipe, including an adaptation for the modern cook.

Unfortunately, I like cooking on hard mode, so I attempted the original recipe as given.

Sally Orne's Gingerbread Receipt, from the Peabody Essex Museum.

My transcription of the recipe: 

Mother Orne's Receipt for Molasses Gingerbread

9 lbs flour, 1 of fat, 2 1/2 of butter, 3 pints of molasses, 1/2 a pint of milk, 1 tea cup of ginger [and?] large tea spoons of pearl ash. Rub the fat and butter into the flour, dissolve the pearl ash in a little milk, mix the molasses and milk together.

Reducing this down to 1/6 scale, that makes 1.5 lb flour, 1/2 lb butter, a bit under 3 oz of fat, 1 cup of molasses, 1/6 cup of milk (or 1 1/3 fl oz), between 2/3oz and 1 oz ginger, and an unknown about of pearl ash.

I took a tea cup as 4 oz, as given in the domestic measures section of A System of Practical Medicine (1842), however that text goes to explain that while a 4oz is the customary measure, a tea cup filled to the brim might actually contain 6 oz while one filled to normal drinking capacity might be closer 4.5 oz to 5oz. Thus the range of "between 2/3 oz" (customary) and "1 oz" (maximum) in my version.

The pearl ash is a bigger problem, because it does not appear to me to actually have an amount in the handwritten original. The "tea spoons" are definitely plural, but the word before "large" appears to be "and" rather than an amount. Furthermore, everywhere else in the recipe, numbers are written as numerals rather than spelled out, so I don't think it's meant to be "three large tea spoons" or "five large tea spoons", but rather "and [omitted number] large tea spoons." 

For comparison, the Common Gingerbread in Miss Leslie's Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastries, Cakes, and Sweetmeats (1832) calls for 1 tsp of pearlash for 2.5 lbs flour, while the Lafayette Gingerbread in the same book can be made lighter with an optional "1 small teaspoon pearlash dissolved in 1 teaspoon of vinegar" for a recipe containing 1.5 lbs of flour. It does caution that using too much pearlash will give a bitter taste, and both receipts advise that if the pearlash is "strong", half the amount will suffice. Extrapolating from these two recipes, we're looking at somewhere between 2/5 tsp and 2/3 tsp pearl ash per pound flour for gingerbread, or 3.6 tsp to 6 tsp for a full batch of the Orne receipt with its 9 lbs flour. Or half that amount.

I'm going to assume that my modern potassium carbonate is very pure and relatively anhydrous, and thus counts as strong pearl ash. So, even at the extreme end of the taking the original as calling for 6 tsp, half of that would make 3 tsp, and my reduced scale version more like 1/2 tsp. [Note: while the modern version calls for apple cider vinegar to replace the cider, I didn't see either of those items in the original. Miss Leslie's receipts calls for vinegar to use with the pearlash; as that is the role given to the milk here, it does leave me wondering whether the writer meant 'sour milk' to be understood. As it was not spelled out, however, I decided to use fresh milk this time and trust to the molasses providing enough acidity to activate the pearlash.]

Math done, I made the gingerbread by cutting the butter and fat (lard) into the flour, to which I added about 3/4 oz of ground ginger. I added the molasses to this mixture, and then the pearl ash, dissolved (more or less) in half of a 1/3 cup measure of milk. There was actually a fair amount of it left in the cup, so I used a minimal amount of additional milk to get the pearlash into the main mixture. It made a soft but workable dough, which I rolled out and then shaped with my gingerbread mold and cutter.

Plate of finished gingerbread.

The dough was much easier to work with than previous attempts. I found that rolling it out to about 1/8" worked with the mold, but I got the best results when I was aiming a bit thicker (trying for 1/4"), pressed the mold deep into the dough, and then used the cutter around the impressed shape. I didn't bother pricking the cakes with a fork, and they seemed to bake just fine (350F for 11-12 minutes). This 1/6 batch produced 49 pieces of gingerbread (3" x 2"). 

I was pleased with how this receipt worked, and with the molasses-ginger flavor. The texture of the cakes is a bit weird: it's not exactly dry, but somehow a bit gritty or powdery, even when it was fresh out of the oven. On the upside, it seems slow to get stale, and pairing it with hot tea goes a long way. I'll probably keep looking for a different receipt or a way to refine this one which gives a more pleasant texture, but to be honest, it did most of the things I wanted it to (taste fine, make a good impression with the mold).