Evening Edge
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Ginger Cakes
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Cuisine: Dessert
Southern Recipe Restoration Project
Betty Smith of Smyrna attributes this recipe to her paternal grandmother, Bedia Dykes Smith; it's one of the few recipes her grandmother ever wrote down. It came to Smith by way of her 90-year-old aunt, Doris Cook of Cochran. "Aunt Doris remembers her mother making these kind of big and thick, and her fingerprints were on top where she flattened them, " wrote Smith. "When you went to see Granny, she always insisted that you had to eat something before you left. That was never a problem for me!"
Cook, the self-appointed family historian, traces the recipe back even further, to her grandmother, Eliza Dykes. "When we were little, we could walk across the field to [the] house, and they were almost always in her pie safe. They were terribly good then. They were good to have after school, and with a glass of milk, they were even better."
Hands on time: 10 minutes Total time: 30 minutes Serves: 10
Ingredients:
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1/2 cup vegetable shortening (we used trans-fat-free)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup cane syrup
1 tablespoon powdered ginger
2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cream together the shortening and sugar until light; beat in the egg. Beat in the cane syrup and ginger. Stir the flour into the batter to form a stiff dough. Roll with your hands into balls the size of golf balls. Place on two lightly greased baking sheets and press with your hand into thick discs.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned on the edges. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned on the edges. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.
Notes:
Note: The first test of this old-timey treat was tasty but rather dry and heavy. So Deborah Geering lightened it up a little by doubling the amount of egg. The result is a "cake" that falls somewhere in the texture department between gingerbread and a gingersnap, just sweet enough to count as a treat but ready to host a drizzle of honey or a spoonful of preserves. Cane syrup is sold in some grocery stores and specialty stores, such as the DeKalb Farmers Market.
Share your own heirloom recipe
You, too, can share an old family recipe and honor a loved one: Go to ajc.com/food, and under Recipe Restoration Project click on Submit Yours and fill out the form. Or e-mail it to savingsouthernfood@ajc.com. Or mail it to Southern Recipe Restoration Project, c/o Food Editor Jamila Robinson, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 72 Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303.
Share your own heirloom recipe
You, too, can share an old family recipe and honor a loved one: Go to ajc.com/food, and under Recipe Restoration Project click on Submit Yours and fill out the form. Or e-mail it to savingsouthernfood@ajc.com. Or mail it to Southern Recipe Restoration Project, c/o Food Editor Jamila Robinson, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 72 Marietta St. N.W., Atlanta, GA 30303.
Nutrition:
Per cake: 294 calories (percent of calories from fat, 34), 4 grams protein, 45 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 11 grams fat (4 grams saturated), 19 milligrams cholesterol, 419 milligrams sodium.
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