Spiced Molasses Cake (Muffins)

I always like to try at least one new recipe during the holidays. This time I started with a very old recipe that I’d found in a cook book on Internet Archive here.  It is a collection of recipes from Williams, Arizona published by their library association in 1911! The recipe is a scant paragraph for Spiced Molasses Cake

One-half cup sugar, one cup shortening (butter or cottolene) ; one cup molasses, one cup boiling water, one teaspoon soda, one teaspoon ginger, cloves and cinnamon, two eggs, two and one-half cups flour. Beat the eggs well and put in last. Mrs. Amos Adams, Williams. Arizona

I modernized the recipe by using olive oil rather than shortening (butter or cottolene). I also made it my own by pureeing a whole orange (cutting off the ends but otherwise including the peeling and pith) to replace part of the hot water, using whole wheat flour, and adding a dash of cayenne pepper.

The batter cooked well in muffin tins…crispy on top, soft and airy underneath. I enjoyed them hot from the oven with butter on my Christmas dinner plate then for breakfast for days after…a lingering flavor of the holidays.

Christmas dinner: broccoli with garlic butter, spiced molasses muffins, roast, cranberry orange salad, baked potato

Some more thoughts about this old recipe:

The amounts are easy to remember since they are either 1 cup or one teaspoon. Experienced cooks would guess 2 eggs and would have added enough flour to get the batter to the right consistency. This was a recipe the writer probably learned from her mother or developed on her own…not something learned from a cookbook. It reminded me of the way my Grandmother cooked.

The airiness of the finished product is not from baking powder like many modern recipes! The last sentence about adding the beaten eggs last is probably important. Something to remember for future sweet muffin experiments.