Depression Era recipes..(and others like it)

The Yakima Kid said:

Old Fashioned Molasses Cake

This is a recipe used by KrautenSnoutens from Russia who settled on the prairies since it seems they looked like a steppe.
It uses baking soda as the leavening, and it uses an egg.

This is from Connection Generations: Food Recollections of German-Russian Heritage, Traditional Family Recipes, and Reminiscent Stories from five generations of "Cooking with Mom." Iszler, Donna and Mya Mayer.

One thing I learned early from my father's German from Russian relatives was that fried and boiled and baked dough is a big part of their cuisine; the original strudel seems to have derived from the Romanian struda. The Germans from Russian used it as noodles over a dish of fried and boiled potatoes. One occasionally comes across someone looking for a recipe for this version of strudel on the Internet who is being lectured by someone who doesn't understand the origins of the lager pastry from the original dough.

The deep fryer appears to be core to the cookery, so there aren't many dishes that my paternal grandmother made that I make. By the time you add in all of the cream, eggs, and deep frying, it definitely doesn't fit into the diet suggested by my physician.

In any event, I pretty much figured that I could skip the Germans From Russia Heritage trips to the Old Country sponsored by North Dakota State University after reading the family stories of a woman who told about how the housewives raced the biddies for the fallen fruit. I understand my ancestors apparently weren't that poor - but it sounds like it was an horrendous way to live, even in the 19th Century.

Without further ado, here is a recipe using eggs and baking soda.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 8x8 cake pans, set aside.

2.5 cups all purpose flour, either sift before measuring or measure by weight (I sometimes use white whole wheat from King Arthur)
1.5 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon, ground
1 tsp. cloves, ground
1/2 tsp. ginger, ground
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup sugar, granulated or brown
1 c molasses
1 egg, well beaten

Mix the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices together thoroughly.

Combine butter, sugar, molasses, and egg. Mix throuroghly

Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat until smooth..

Pour into cake pans. Bake 30 minutes at 350, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let cool until just warm. Serve plain, or with a dollop of whipped cream.

At our house we substitute vanilla ice cream for the dollop of whipped cream..

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