Gingerbread

“ I can make good gingerbread, and it's just as you say, neither of us know enough to teach well, and we are both poor hands at sewing, and we should have a much better chance if we tried to do what we can and not what we can't. Why shouldn't I make gingerbread? Dely'd help me, and if folks liked our things and bought them, we could live and keep together. ”

“ To mix it, boil the molasses with the butter and shortening cut up in it, and pour it hot upon the flour. Stir it a little, and then add the sour milk with the saleratus and ginger. Stir it well. Gingerbread is as much better for being thoroughly beaten, as any other cake. You can make it rather more delicate by using butter only, adding a gill of brown sugar, and substituting cinnamon and clove instead of ginger. On the other hand, very good gingerbread is made by omitting the butter, and using shortening instead, and cold water or cider in place of the sour milk. ”

“ I think I will make a fine gingerbread man, such as I used to make in Paris, and put it in the shop window to attract attention. These Americans like enterprise, and they have never seen a gingerbread man, for I have not made one since I came to this country." With Monsieur Jules, to think was to act, and scarcely had he spoken these words when he began to gather his material together for a great batch of gingerbread dough. For he resolved that the man he was about to make should be big enough and fine enough to arouse the wonder of all beholders. ”

“ Hard Gingerbread.—Rub half lb. butter in one of flour—rub in half lb. sugar, two table-spoons ginger—spoonful rose water; work it well, roll out, and bake in flat pans about half hour moderate.
Common Gingerbread.—One and half lb. flour, rub in half lb. butter, add pint molasses, tea-spoon pearl ash, and ginger to the taste; roll out thin and bake on buttered tins.
Indian Batter Cakes.—2 quarts milk, 1 quart Indian meal, 1 tea-cup wheat flour, 3 eggs, well beat, the whites separate, tea-spoonful salt. Bake on griddle, same as buckwheat. ”

“ I have just baked some gingerbread and some one really must try it while it is still fresh."
It was certainly delightful to sit in a cushioned chair by the wide fireplace where a few sticks were burning, to drink cool milk and eat new gingerbread and to hear the rain drumming on the tiles outside the casement window. Miss Miranda, sitting opposite with her knitting, was asking questions about Elizabeth's father, about her work and her school and her plans for college, in which she seemed to be much interested. ”

“ Everybody shouted and clapped hands. Three weddings took place at once, and nobody had a better time than the old king himself.
THE GINGERBREAD MAN In which a gingerbread man has some adventures, but finally comes to grief.
A little old woman had no man of her own and so she decided to make one of gingerbread. So one day she made a gingerbread man. She put on a chocolate coat, with cinnamon buttons. She made his eyes out of caraway seed, and a cap out of a lump of sugar.
“Now, my little man, I shall bake you until you are done,” said the old woman, and put the gingerbread man into the oven. ”

“ He climbs no higher than is necessary, perches himself on a stout limb, and eats at his gingerbread for dear life. He knows just what position to take for safety; and often, ere the tree comes down, there is little gingerbread left to reward its captors. The meagre remnant is usually 293 handed over with an admirable submissiveness, if it is not dropped in the fall, and annihilated in the snow and débris. ”

“ The celebrated gingerbread maker has, on a ‘peel,’ three kings, duly gilt—Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Baden—which he is just introducing into the ‘New French Oven for Imperial Gingerbread.’ On a chest of three drawers, relatively labelled Kings and Queens, Crowns and Sceptres, and Suns and Moons, are a quantity of ‘Little Dough Viceroys, intended for the next batch.’ Under the oven is an 49‘Ash hole for broken Gingerbread,’ and a broom—‘the Corsican Besom of Destruction’—has swept therein La République Française, Italy, Austria, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Holland, and Venice. ”

“ I have mentioned stolen gingerbread. This bread is a favorite delicacy in the camps; and the cook who can make really good gingerbread is prized indeed. It is made in wide, thin, tough sheets; and while it is being served to the hands, some fellow occasionally succeeds in ‘hooking’ a whole sheet while the cook’s back is toward him. But in that same instant every man’s hand is turned against him. He darts into the woods, devouring huge mouthfuls as he runs. If he is very swift of foot he may escape, eat his spoils in retirement, and stroll back, an hour later, with a conscious air of triumph. ”

“ Mother took the pan out of the oven. She tipped out the gingerbread and put it on a rack and covered it with a cloth. “It looks very well,” she said.
The fragrance of that gingerbread filled the whole house. ”

“ When it is cold, it is ready for use.
GINGERBREAD AND SMALL CAKES. GINGERBREAD. MRS. W. H. ECKHART. One and one-half cups Orleans molasses, one cup brown or granulated sugar, one-half cup lard, one cup boiling water, one teaspoon soda dissolved in the water, two teaspoons ginger, one teaspoon each of cloves and cinnamon, three cups flour, one egg. Put all in the vessel, excepting the water and egg; beat well; then add the water and soda; after stirring this well together, add the beaten egg. Bake in quick oven. Put greased paper in pan before pouring in the mixture. Let cool in the pans. ”

“ Cambridge Gingerbread Melt butter in water, add molasses, egg well beaten, and dry ingredients mixed and sifted. Bake in a buttered shallow pan.
Soft Sugar Gingerbread Beat eggs until light, and add sugar gradually. Mix and sift dry ingredients, and add alternately with cream to first mixture. Turn into a buttered cake pan, and bake thirty minutes in a moderate oven.
Gossamer Gingerbread Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, then egg well beaten. Add milk, and dry ingredients mixed and sifted. Spread in a buttered dripping-pan as thinly as possible, using the back of mixing-spoon. ”

“ Cream Gingerbread
Bake in gem pans. Greatly improved by adding nuts and raisins.
Cream Gingerbread Cakes
Beat 2 eggs until light, add 1⁄2 cup of sugar, 1⁄2 cup molasses, 3⁄4 cup thick sour cream, the grated rind of 1⁄2 lemon, 1 saltspoon of salt, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 tablespoon ginger, and finally, add 2 cups of well sifted flour mixed with 11⁄2 teaspoons soda (level) .
Bake in gem pans. If desired add nuts and raisins which improves them very much. [114]
Parliament Gingerbread
(With apologies to the English Suffragists)
A bit of hot water in which soda is dissolved. ”

“ When all the gifts have been hunted out (down to a pair of skates with long curved tips for a boy so little that you would think St. Nicholas must have made a mistake if you did not know that Dutch children learn to skate almost as early as you learn to walk) , the children are ready for the season’s other special treat, the gingerbread cakes. Delicately spiced gingerbread is made into many fantastic shapes, but every one, young or old, receives a gingerbread doll. Figures of men are given to the women folk, and of women in ruffles and straight skirts to the men. ”

“ Much good dough may be spoiled in the baking. None knew that better than Jules Grogrande. So he tended the oven with nervous care, and finally, at exactly the right moment, the baker threw open the oven door and drew out the sheet of iron upon which the great and grand gingerbread man rested. ”

“ Golden mice were made by the Philistines [4] in Samuel's time when they were delivered from the plague that marred their land; but that may have been a golden age: this is an age of gingerbread, and the Hameln people manufacture rats accordingly. It will be understood that I use the word "gingerbread" generically: the artists work in sugar, chocolate, and other plastic materials, as best it pleases them. The card conveying "Grüsse aus Hameln" is nibbled round the edges to show its authenticity. ”

“ GOOD COMMON GINGERBREAD. Work very smoothly six ounces of fresh butter (or some that has been well washed from the salt, and wrung dry in a cloth) into one pound of flour, and mix with them thoroughly an ounce of ginger in fine powder, four ounces of brown sugar, and half a teaspoonful of beaten cloves and mace. Wet these with three-quarters of a pound of cold treacle, or rather more, if needful; roll out the paste, cut the cakes with a round tin cutter, lay them on a floured or buttered baking tin, and put them into a very slow oven. ”

“ Stir butter, sugar, molasses, and spice together to a light cream, set them on the range until slightly warm; beat the eggs light; add the milk to the warmed mixture, then the eggs, the soda, and lastly the flour. Beat very hard ten minutes, and bake at once in a loaf, or in small tins. Half a pound raisins, seeded and cut in half, will improve this excellent gingerbread. ”

“ Mix the day before baking.
46. Another Way.—7 lbs. of flour, 5 lbs. of syrup, 23⁄4 lbs. of moist sugar, 1 lb. of lard, 4 ozs. ginger, 1⁄2 oz. of tartaric acid, 1⁄2 oz. of carbonate of soda, 1⁄2 oz. of cinnamon, 1⁄2 oz. of mace. Mix and work same as other doughs. This is a capital mixture.
47.—Light Gingerbread.
Dr. Colquhoun gives a recipe for preparing a light gingerbread as follows: Take 1 lb. of flour, 1⁄4 oz. of carbonate of magnesia, and 1/8 oz. of tartaric acid. Mix the flour and magnesia thoroughly, then dissolve and add the acid; take the usual quantity of butter, treacle, and spice ”

“ Gingerbread Aperients.—Gingerbread, made with oatmeal or with barley flour, is a very agreeable aperient for children. Beware of giving children medicines too frequently.
3740. For Bowel Complaints.—One tablespoonful of flour, one ditto of brandy, one ditto of loaf sugar, mixed together.
3741. Jaundice.—One pennyworth of allspice, ditto of flour of brimstone, ditto of turmeric; these to be well pounded together, and afterward to be mixed with half-a-pound of molasses. Two table-spoonsful to be taken every day. ”

“ This sort of gingerbread is baked daily and more sedulously than pure wheat or rye-and-Indian in almost every oven, and finds a surer market.
The best books are not read even by those who are called good readers. ”

“ Some are short, hardly more than a ground cover, others grow twelve or fifteen feet in height.
A native ginger, called Awapuhi by the Hawaiians, and Zingiber zerumbet, by the botanist, grows in the Hawaiian forests. Its leaves form a ground cover a foot or two high. In spring the flower heads spring up, bulbous and reddish, composed of scaly bracts out of which appear the small, inconspicuous, yellowish flowers.
The plant from whose root is made the dried ginger of gingerbread also grows in Hawaii. It is called Chinese Ginger or Zingiber officinalis. ”

“ When he gets home he hangs his purchase on a nail. You know the effect of the atmosphere on gingerbread; the slightest moisture renders it soft; in dry weather, on the contrary, it grows hard and tough. ”

“ Hänsel. Please let me out, Mrs. Gingerbread.
The Gingerbread Witch. When you are fatter. Now I must look to my fire. It [121] is burning well, and the oven will soon be hot enough to bake my dinner. When I change my gingerbread I'll pop little Gretel in and shut the door. ”

“ Better beat all together with the hand. Bake it either in a shallow pan or in little cups. This is very nice, if a teaspoonful of cinnamon, half a teaspoonful of cloves, and a teacupful of stoned raisins are added, and the whole baked in a loaf.
Plain Gingerbread.—One cupful of sugar, one of molasses, half a cupful of butter, half a cupful of milk, one cupful of raisins or currants, two teaspoonfuls of ginger, and one of yeast powder, with flour enough to make it as stiff as cup cake. ”

“ By boiling, the ginger loses a portion of its essential oil; and its black colour is owing to this.
The uses of ginger, both in medicine, and as a spice, are numerous and well known. In the West Indies this root is frequently eaten fresh in salads, and with other food: and the roots when dug up young, namely, at the end of three or four months after they have been planted, are preserved in syrup, and exported as a sweet-meat to nearly all parts of the world. The ginger which is brought into this country from the East Indies is much stronger than any we have from Jamaica. ”

“ A SUPERIOR GINGER BEER Take of sugar 10 lbs., lemon juice 9 oz., honey 1/2 lb., bruised ginger root 11 oz., water 9 galls., yeast 3 pints, boil the ginger in the water until the strength is all extracted, which you may tell be tasting the root, then pour it into a tub, throwing the roots away, let it stand until nearly luke warm, then put in all the rest of the ingredients, stir well until all dissolved, cover it over with a cloth, and if it be in the evening, let it remain until next morning, then strain through cloth, and bottle it, and in a short time it will be fit for use. ”

“ To make Dutch Ginger-bread:—Take four pounds of flour, and mix with it two ounces and a half of beaten ginger; then rub in a quarter of a pound of butter, and add to it two ounces of carraway-seeds, two ounces of orange-peel dried and rubb'd to powder, a few coriander-seeds bruised, two eggs: then mix all up in a stiff paste, with two pounds and a quarter of treacle; beat it very well with a rolling-pin, and make it up into thirty cakes ”