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Gingerbread is one of the most classic old-fashioned desserts, and it’s been around in some form or another for centuries. This old-fashioned gingerbread cookie recipe dates from the 1860s, and it has a soft texture and a nice blend of molasses and spice flavors.
For this recipe, I adapted two 19th century gingerbread recipes. The main recipe is from the 1868 edition of Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Receipt Book. (Which was a recipe pamphlet designed to advertise Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup for babies – a syrup that contained morphine as it’s main ingedient!)
I also added the amounts of cinnamon and ginger from the 1866 edition of Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Recipe Book, and since I like the flavor of cloves with my gingerbread I added a bit of those for good measure too.
Original Recipe:
“One coffee-cup molasses, two eggs, one cup butter, one cup sugar, one teaspoon sodas, flour to roll, ginger to taste.”
Mrs. Winslow’s Domestic Recipe Book for 1868, pg. 14
Like many 19th century recipes, this one assumes that the cook would know the basics of how to make a batch of gingerbread cookies, leaving the decisions for the amount of flour, the oven temperature, and the time for baking up to the cook to decide. Cookbooks have definitely changed a lot since the 19th century!
Recipe Notes:
- Since I usually prefer soft gingerbread cookies, I baked mine to have a nice soft texture, but if you like crisper cookies, you can roll these out a bit thinner and bake them for a minute or two longer.
- I used an organic, unbleached all-purpose flour for this recipe, but you could also make these with einkorn or spelt flour, too. You could make them with whole-wheat flour, but the texture will be coarser (or for a softer texture you could blend whole wheat and a more refined flour.)
- Also, even though many modern rolled cookie recipes call for chilling the dough for awhile before rolling out and baking the cookies, I omitted this step. Since this is an old-fashioned gingerbread cookie recipe and since modern refrigerators hadn’t been invented yet at the time this recipe was created, I decided to go the 19th-century route and just add a bit more flour as I was rolling out the cookies when needed. If you prefer to chill the dough first for a little while in the fridge you can certainly do that.
These old-fashioned gingerbread cookies are soft and chewy with a rich molasses and spice flavor. As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Old-Fashioned Gingerbread Cookie Recipe from 1868
Ingredients
Cookie Dough Recipe
Icing Recipe
Instructions
Notes
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The information in this post is not to be taken as medical advice and is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease.
Renee
Thursday 10th of January 2019
These look SOOOO amazing! It's snowing here right now, so it's a great night to bake some gingerbread cookies!
Lori Elliott
Thursday 10th of January 2019
Snowy weather is perfect gingerbread cookie weather! :)