Miss Parloa’s Soft Molasses Gingerbread

Yesterday, one of my little ones asked me to make gingerbread. What a lovely idea for a cold and blustery February day!

The only problem was, I had let us run clean out of sugar. Not one granule of white or brown sugar was there, in this whole house. And my usual recipe uses both molasses and sugar.

Thankfully, I am very blessed to have a number of excellent cookery books on my shelves. For the next 20 minutes, my little ones and I took them all down and combed through each one, looking for gingerbread recipes that called for only molasses, and no sugar.

I should have known that dear Miss Parloa would be our salvation. In her wonderful Appledore Cook Book, she shares not one but two soft gingerbread recipes that require only molasses for sweetening.

I have come to notice in Miss Parloa’s cook books that when she lists multiple recipes for a certain dish, they seem to be listed in order of her own preference for the finished product. So we opted to make her Soft Molasses Gingerbread, No. 2., rather than No. 3, which also relies only on molasses for its sweetness.

The instructions are very easy to follow, and we were delighted with the results. This is an excellent frugal recipe for soft molasses gingerbread, which requires only six ingredients. It puts a delicious gingerbread well within reach of anyone, even if sugar, eggs, and butter are not available, or are too expensive for common baking.

If I ever had occasion to serve gingerbread to the President, I would still likely opt for a “Rich Molasses Gingerbread” recipe, with eggs and additional spices. This is not perhaps what you might call a “company gingerbread” recipe.

But for family cookery, it is affordable, easy, and very nice. My little ones were delighted with it, and could have gobbled down the whole pan at once, if I let them!

The recipe below has been adapted only to allow for modern leavening, and ovens. For the exact original recipe using saleratus, please reference “Soft Molasses Gingerbread, No. 2.” in the photo above.