Common Gingerbread Recipe
COMMON GINGERBREAD.
A pint of molasses. One pound of fresh butter. Two pounds and a half of ?our, sifted. A pint of milk, A small tea-spoonful of pearl-ash, or less if it is strong. A tea-cup full of ginger.
Cut the butter into the ?our. Add the ginger. Having dissolved the pearl-ash in a little vinegar, stir it with the milk and molasses alternately into the other ingredients. Stir it very hard for a long lime, till it is quite light.
Put some ?our on your paste-board, take out small portions of the dough, and make it with your hand into long rolls. Then curl up the rolls into round cakes, or twist two
rolls together, or lay them in straight lengths or sticks side by side, and touching each other. Put them carefully in buttered pans, and bake them in a moderate oven, not hot enough to burn them. If they should get scorched, scrape off with a knife, or grater, all the burnt parts, before you put the cakes away.
You can, if you choose, cut out the dough with tins, in the shape of hearts, circles, ovals, &c. or you may bake it all in one, and cut it in squares when cold.
If the mixture appears to be too thin, add, gradually, a little more sifted ?our.
