My great aunt's gingerbread was always a dry brick until I found her old notebook

I've been making her recipe every Christmas for ten years, and it always came out hard and crumbly. I just assumed that was how it was supposed to be, a tough old-fashioned treat. Then, while cleaning out a closet in her house in Toledo, I found her cooking notebook from the 1950s. My recipe card said 'one cup molasses,' but her handwritten note next to it said 'one cup BLACKSTRAP molasses, the light stuff makes it dry.' I'd been using the wrong kind the whole time. I tried it with blackstrap last weekend and the difference was crazy. It was moist and spicy, not a doorstop. It makes me wonder how many other old recipes have little details like that that got lost when they were copied down. Has anyone else had a recipe completely change because of one specific ingredient note?

3 comments

3 Comments

wilson.anthony1mo ago

You were in Toledo this whole time? That's wild, I grew up there. Blackstrap molasses makes total sense, it's way thicker and has a stronger flavor.

emeryw161mo ago

Wait, are we really having a whole talk about MOLASSES types now? That's a deep dive for a sweetener. I get what you're saying @wilson.anthony, blackstrap is intense stuff. But honestly, does the recipe even care that much? My grandma just used whatever was in the cabinet and it always tasted fine. People make food way too complicated sometimes.

kaimiller3d ago

People get real serious about baking chemistry on here.