Fudge Cake with Molasses Frosting - 1931 Recipe from the Pollyanna Club Cookbook

Happy Memorial Day everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic holiday weekend! I have enjoyed my weekend and hate that it’s coming to an end.

This weekend I made two recipes from my 1931 Pollyanna Club Cookbook. There was a molasses frosting recipe that caught my eye and it stated that it is “Very good on chocolate cake.” With that in mind, I found a yummy looking fudge cake recipe in the book as well so, I decided to make a fudge cake with molasses frosting! Sounds delicious doesn’t it? Let’s see how it went down! Here are the recipes I used…

The recipes were a contribution to the cookbook from a Mrs. Freda Reed and a Mrs. J. Raymond Lynch. Thank you ladies!

Now, it’s interesting that the recipes are basically just your ingredients and measurements. There are really no instructions on how to prepare them at all. So, I did my best…

Let’s start with the ingredients I used.

First, for the cake, I preheated the oven to 350. Of course, it doesn’t say to do that so I just went with that based off my baking experience. Also, all of my ingredients were room temperature and helps things bake evenly. I didn’t do this for a very long time and I couldn’t figure out why my cakes came out wonky so, I heeded this advice and I’ve had no problems with unpredictable, wonky cakes since.

I creamed my butter and sugar.

Added my eggs and continued to mix…

In a separate bowl, I sifted my flour.

I added the flour to my butter, sugar and egg mixture.

It was very doughy and thick and I remembered that I had forgotten the milk! All was well after I mixed that in.

I finally got to use my sweet heart measuring spoons that were gifted to me from Lisa at Famous Nameless Antiques & Oddities in Newnan, GA, my favorite shop!

I added the cocoa, vanilla and the boiling water and mixed away. The batter was rather thin but no worries, they baked up just fine!

I was tidying the kitchen and dropped a glass salt bottle onto the cake. Oops! The cakes baked evenly and turned out fantastically! They were very moist and though I lined the pans with parchment and sprayed them generously with non-stick spray, I still had a little trouble getting them out so I recommend that you line, grease AND flour your pans for easier release. On to the molasses frosting. I was so excited to have found Brer Rabbit molasses! I’ve never cooked with it before but I have many vintage and antique Brer Rabbit cook booklets from the 1920’s and 30’s. I’ll have to share those soon! Ok, frosting!

I sifted my sugar, then added my molasses, butter, ginger and mixed. It was a crumbled mess! So as the recipe suggests, I added a boiling water until it became smooth.

It turned out a beautiful caramel color. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough frosting so I had to double my recipe to ice two layers of chocolate cake.

NOW!! That’s a beautiful cake! So how did it taste? Well, it was interesting and different to say the least. I was impressed with the chocolate cake itself. It was absolutely delicious! It was perfect! Super moist and tasty and I will most definitely be using this recipe for other cakes and cupcakes in the future. The frosting however was extremely ginger flavored. I felt the ginger was overpowering. It lent a very savory taste that brought to mind what it might taste like if your Chinese takeout accidentally spilt onto your dessert. I did not care for it and I had to remind myself that these flavors were popular back in the day. Though I wouldn’t make it again as the recipe instructs, it is a frosting that I’d like to play around with. Maybe decreasing the ginger and adding other spices to help the flavor along? I do love the the idea of a molasses frosting. With more spices, I could definitely see a gingerbread frosting being born of it! All in all, it was an interesting dessert from the past and I had a blast recreating it!

I hope you’ll give it a shot and make the cake yourself! It’s definitely worth it! If you do, please let me know how it went and what your thoughts are. Let me know in the comments! Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it! Until next time and as my beloved Nanny Nell always said, “Toodles!”