This section is from the book "The Golden Age Cook Book", by Henrietta Latham Dwight. Also available from Amazon: Golden Age Cook Book.
One cup of molasses, one cup of butter, one cup of brown sugar, one cup of sour milk, three and a half cups of flour, half a teaspoonful of soda, five eggs, ginger, allspice, cloves and cinnamon to taste. Beat butter and sugar to a cream, stir in the molasses and spice, add a cup of the flour, then part of the milk, mix the soda with the rest of the flour and stir in alternately with the milk. Bake in shallow pans in a moderate oven.
Three-quarters of a pound of butter, three-quarters of a pound of granulated sugar, one pound of flour, one teaspoonful of ginger, two even teaspoon-fuls of soda sifted with the flour. Mix well together. Roll out, cut in small round cakes, brush over with white of egg, and sprinkle with sugar and finely chopped almonds. Bake in a slow oven.
Rub three-quarters of a pound of butter into a pound of sifted flour and mix in half a pound of brown sugar, add six tablespoonfuls of ginger, one teaspoonful of powdered cloves, and two teaspoon-fuls of cinnamon, stir in a pint of Porto Rico molasses and the grated peel of a large lemon, add at the last a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in tepid water. Beat the mixture hard with a wooden spoon, make it into a lump of dough just stiff enough to roll. Cut in small cakes and bake in a moderate oven.
One pint of Porto Rico molasses, one pound of brown sugar, one pound of butter, two pounds of flour, two tablespoonfuls of ginger, two of cinnamon, half a tablespoonful of allspice, a teaspoonful of nutmeg and half an ounce of soda. Beat butter and sugar to a cream, add the spice and molasses, mix the soda with half of the flour and stir all together. Roll thin, cut in small cakes and bake in a moderate oven.
Two cups of Porto Rico molasses, one cup of brown sugar, one cup of butter, two tablespoonfuls of ginger, flour to make the dough stiff enough to roll.
It requires to be kneaded thoroughly. It is better that the dough be made the day before the cakes are to be baked that it may dry a little, as they are spoiled if too much flour is added. Roll thin, cut in oblong cakes with a jagging iron, or in any way to suit the fancy.
Two cups of flour, one cup of Porto Rico molasses, one cup of milk, the third of a cup of butter, one egg, one slightly heaping teaspoonful of soda sifted with the flour, one heaping teaspoonful of ginger, one cup of currants. Beat the egg a little, add the molasses with the butter melted and stirred into it, then the currants, about half the milk, all of the flour, beat well and add the rest of the milk. Bake in two cakes in a quick oven from twelve to fifteen minutes. Use the chocolate filling, given for chocolate layer cake, and ice the top and the sides with the same.
 
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