Cut up a pound of butter in a quart of West India molasses, which
must be perfectly sweet; if it is in the least sour, use sugar
house molasses instead. Warm it slightly, just enough to melt the
butter. Crush with the rolling-pin, on the paste-board, half a
pound of brown sugar, and add it by degrees to the molasses and
butter; then stir in a tea-cup full of powdered ginger, a large
tea-spoonful of powdered cloves, and a table-spoonful of powdered
cinnamon. Add gradually sufficient flour to make a dough stiff
enough to roll out easily; and lastly, a small tea-spoonful of
pearl-ash melted in a little warm water. Mix and stir the dough
very hard with a spaddle, or a wooden spoon; but do not knead it.
Then divide it with a knife into equal portions; and, having
floured your hands, roll it out on the paste-board into long even
strips. Place them in shallow tin pans, that have been buttered;
either laying the strips side by side in straight round sticks,
(uniting them at both ends,) or coil them into rings one within
another, as you see them at the cake shops. Bake them in a brisk
oven, taking care that they do not burn; gingerbread scorching
sooner than any other cake.
To save time and trouble, you may roll out the dough into a sheet
near an inch thick, and cut it into round flat cakes with a tin
cutter, or with the edge of a tumbler.
Ground ginger loses much of its strength by keeping. Therefore it
will be frequently found necessary to put in more than the
quantity given in the receipt.