Cooking with my American Southern mother meant using molasses, frequently. In contrast, most British households do not use molasses as frequently as it is used in the US South. It tends to make seasonal appearances – used for treacle scones, gingerbread, and holiday baking. In other words, in the UK molasses is more of a specialty pantry item than a staple like sugar.
It’s a shame; molasses is one of those pantry items that tastes like a place.
Molasses found its way to kitchens in North America as a byproduct of Caribbean sugar production. It was quickly adopted by enslaved cooks in Southern kitchens and used to make glazes, skillet breads, sauces, and ginger cakes. Molasses was shelf-stable, inexpensive, and very flavourful. The molasses that enslaved cooks used was made by their Caribbean counterparts, who produced it on sugar plantations. It was an important commodity in the triangular trade that connected slavery, sugar, and rum across the Atlantic.
Enslaved Southern cooks and their descendants transformed ingredients such as molasses into part of the foodways that we know as Southern: techniques for making food go further, sweetening, and preserving; the creativity that made basic staples into regional specialties; and recipes that balanced smoke, sweet, and bitter. Molasses was used daily by both enslaved and free Black cooks as a sweetener.
The dark, thick liquid appears often through Works Progress Administration (WPA) narratives and oral histories of Southern food. I found this out through my research for this post. The WPA was created by the US federal government in 1935 as a New Deal agency to provide public works jobs during the Great Depression. One of its programs was the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP), which employed interviewers and writers in the US to collect local guides, oral histories, and WPA slave narratives that preserve first-person accounts of formerly enslaved people. Those interviewed frequently mentioned molasses, which they used to sweeten cakes, porridges, and as a spread for bread.
I remember my mother making Southern baked beans with navy beans, bacon, and molasses, which added a deep, smoky flavour. So delicious! Summer, backyard grilling at our house in New York often featured homemade tomato-based barbecue sauces made with molasses that added caramel notes, body, and a fun, sticky finish. Molasses was the ingredient that helped a glorious bark form on the pork, which sometimes came courtesy of Uncle Herman, from The Hill in Roanoke, from our family farm. Of course, molasses is brilliant, not only in gingerbread but also in molasses cookies, which I used to make often.
Molasses Ginger Cookies — Metric Version
Yield: about 4 dozen cookies
Oven: 190°C (conventional)
Ingredients
- Shortening: 160 g
- Light brown sugar (packed): 220 g
- Egg: 1 large (about 50 g whole)
- Unsulphured molasses: 60 mL
- Plain flour (all‑purpose): 285 g
- Baking soda: 10 g (about 2 tsp)
- Salt: 1.5 g (about 1/4 tsp)
- Ground cloves: 1.3 g (about 1/2 tsp)
- Ground cinnamon: 2.6 g (about 1 tsp)
- Ground ginger: 2.6 g (about 1 tsp)
- Granulated sugar for rolling: 50 g (approx.; enough to coat tops)
Method
1. Mix wet ingredients. In a bowl, cream shortening with packed light brown sugar until combined. Beat in the egg and molasses until smooth.
2. Add dry ingredients. Stir in plain flour, baking soda, salt, ground cloves, cinnamon, and ginger until a cohesive dough forms.
3. Chill. Cover and chill the dough in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes.
4. Preheat oven. Heat oven to 190°C. Grease baking sheets or line with baking paper.
5. Shape. Roll chilled dough into walnut‑sized balls (about 20–24 g each for roughly 4 dozen). Dip the tops of each ball into the granulated sugar. Place on the baking sheet sugar‑side up, spacing about 4–5 cm apart.
6. Create cracks. Sprinkle 2–3 drops of water onto the sugared top of each ball to encourage a cracked surface as they bake.
7. Bake. Bake at 190°C for 10–12 minutes, until edges are set and tops show crackling.
8. Cool. Remove from oven and let cookies rest on the sheet for 2–3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Substitutions: If using butter instead of shortening, expect slightly more spread; chill dough well.
- Spice adjustments: Increase or decrease ginger and cloves to taste.
- Storage: Store in an airtight container for up to 5 days; freeze dough balls for later baking.