How To Make An Old-Fashioned Molasses Cake

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This is an old, old recipe from the Amish community of Aylmer, Ontario.  This really is a great cake, however, use blackstrap molasses, not sorghum molasses. I used sorghum molasses forgetting that it has a little less bit than blackstrap and for this cake you want the full molasses treatment.

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• 🥄 The Amish & Molasses
• 📋 Step-by-Step Molasses Cake
• 👨‍🍳 More Amish Recipes With Molasses
• Full Recipe

🥄 The Amish & Molasses

The Amish commonly use molasses in their cooking and baking. It is a staple ingredient in many traditional Amish recipes, such as shoofly pie, molasses cookies, baked beans, and various breads. It is even popular in adding balance to savory dishes like chicken or beef. Molasses is valued for its robust flavor and as a natural sweetener, fitting well with the Amish preference for simple, wholesome, and traditional ingredients.

Some Amish communities make their own molasses, particularly in areas where sorghum or sugarcane can be grown. You find a lot of homemade molasses in Amish settlements in Kentucky and Tennessee. Sorghum molasses, made from sorghum cane, is more common in Amish settlements in the Midwest and southern parts of the United States due to the suitable climate for growing sorghum.

📋 Step-by-Step Molasses Cake

This molasses cake is perfect for Christmas. We made a butter cream frosting, but you can take your pick of Amish frostings here or, my favorite, brown sugar frosting.

So if you are looking for a holiday hit that tastes great, this fits the bill well!

Use a large bowl, you can use an electric mixer or just a wooden spoon like we did and it'll come out fine. This is the step, though, that if you want to try various variations, you can...you could add a teaspoon of vanilla here, perhaps some cinnamon, walnuts if you want some crunch, and on and on. This is a versatile cake that lends itself well to additions. Cloves could also be a nice touch.

 

Once you pour the batter into a pan, it's time to bake.

 

And here is this winner of a recipe!  Oh, two other quick things: use your favorite frosting recipe.  I think a lemon frosting would good well (but no one on this site seems to like lemon).

👨‍🍳 More Amish Recipes With Molasses

AMISH MOLASSES BROWNIES

MOLASSES COOKIES WITH LEMON FROSTING

Full Recipe