Gingerbread

The apple doesn’t always fall near the tree. Take my proper mother and her decidedly less proper mother. Grandma owned a small brick ranch house in the little town nearest our farm, and I spent a great deal of time with her. She was the best antidote I had to the isolation of farm living. Grandma was my main confidante, listening to my childhood sob stories as though they were enthralling tales. (They were not.) She was the very image of the grandmother who goes above and beyond to spoil her granddaughter. 

Grandma was, I suspect, a woman born far ahead of her time. She lived her life during times challenging to be a woman; but she devised clever ways to detour around the obstacles to her benefit. She was also my first role model of a single woman who lived happily and independently.  Grandma had a lovely group of friends with whom she spent time chatting and playing cards. Watching her daily “story,” (aka soap opera) was top priority. She was wont to spout her thoughts openly, generously sprinkled with German curse words and colorful expressions. (My favorite of these has always been “well, shit and box it.”)

Unlike Mom, Grandma was not a  cook. Don’t get me wrong, she had cooked her entire life for her family. She made a mean pot roast, with all the trimmings. But living alone, I suspect she was done with the whole cooking schtick. She embraced convenience foods as manna from heaven. A Sara Lee cheesecake lurked in her freezer at all times. While she would make or buy me any unhealthy dish my heart desired, I seldom saw her eat much herself. She appeared to survive to the age of 93 on coffee, cigarettes and a nightly bedtime tonic of gin. But there were a few family recipes that were hers, with a decided Amish influence. 

Grandma would tell you that she was of German heritage. Recently, I’ve tracked her ancestry to Alsace Lorraine, an area which changed borders between France and Germany a number of times through history. Her great grandparents were born in Germany and died in France, without ever moving! Her grandfather came to the new world and married a woman from eastern Pennsylvania, home to a large Amish community, hence the recipes.  One of my favorites is her gingerbread.

Grandma’s gingerbread was a frequent dessert on the farm. While light and spicy,  I felt the recipe could benefit from a few swaps. It called for melting shortening in boiling water, but the shortening of Grandma’s era was full of trans fats, no longer on the market. Shortening still exists, but the trans fats have been replaced with saturated fats, not much of an improvement. I decided to use a touch of butter for flavor and oil for the remaining fat. A mix of half all purpose flour and half whole grain spelt flour wasn’t even noticeable in the finished cake. But the real surprise was the molasses. While Grandma and Mom both used  the lightest grade of molasses, I had only blackstrap molasses in my cupboard. When I pulled the cake from the oven, it was a bit sunken in the middle, like a flourless chocolate cake. And indeed, this gingerbread had a deep, almost smoky essence of molasses, with a moist, fudgy crumb. It was both different and delicious. 

This gingerbread is quick and easy to make, a good dessert to have in the recipe box. Make it to your taste with light, medium or blackstrap molasses. I like it served with lemon curd, but whipped cream and chocolate sauce are other possible toppings. But you might also find that it’s delicious served warm from the pan, just plain.