"Cooking for Two" cookbook.

The Power of Simplicity: Janet Hill, Fannie Farmer, and Perfect Recipes a Century Later

In her late thirties, high school teacher Janet McKenzie Hill ventured to Boston, where she enrolled at the Boston Cooking School. After studying under American culinary pioneer Fannie Farmer, then director of the BCS, Hill graduated in 1892. She went on to found the Boston Cooking School Journal, which she edited for many years, and author numerous cookbooks, including Salads, Sandwiches, and Chafing Dish Dainties (1899), Practical Cooking and Serving (1902), and Whys of Cooking (1916) (Feeding America). This recipe for ginger cakes—flavorful spice cookies boasting a crispy exterior and a dense, chewy center akin to soft gingerbread—comes from her 1909 volume Cooking for Two: A Handbook for Young Housekeepers.

Version 2Plain Ginger Cakes

½ cup of molasses

1 teaspoonful of soda

¼ cup of butter

¼ cup of boiling water

2 cups of flour

½ teaspoonful of salt

½ tablespoonful of ginger

½ teaspoonful of cinnamon

Stir the soda into the molasses; melt the butter in the boiling water; turn all into a bowl and stir in the flour, sifted with the salt and spices; add more flour if needed, but keep the dough as soft as can be handled. Roll a little of the dough at a time to a sheet about three-eighths of an inch thick and cut into rounds. Press two pecan nut meats into the top of each, and dredge with granulated sugar. Bake in a moderate oven. The recipe will make about twenty cakes.

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