From Our Test Kitchen: Mary Ellen Pleasant

Molasses Sponge Cake and Lemon Filling

Even though my thoughts more typically turn to molasses in January (and, yes, I think more slowly then, too), the recent nip in the air had me longing for gingerbread and spice cakes early in the season. So this test kitchen baker turned to a cookbook of recipes gleaned from the archival papers of Mary Ellen Pleasant, an African-American entrepreneur in 19th-century San Francisco who, among her many business activities, ran a few boardinghouses, which necessitated cooking on a large scale.

Said archival papers--2 boxes of which reside in the San Francisco History Center as part of the Helen Holdredge Collection-- include two small “recipe books,” which are simply lists of ingredients; unlike today’s cookbooks, there are no references to oven temperature or cooking time.


Recipe Book from Mary Ellen Pleasant Papers
Folder 21 of Helen Holdredge Collection
San Francisco History Center

For publication, Holdredge (Pleasant's biographer in the 1950s) adapted Pleasant’s recipes to amounts suitable for home cooks and added temperature and cooking times. The resulting book was Mammy Pleasant’s Cookbook: a treasury of gourmet recipes from Victorian America, from which today's Molasses Sponge Cake and Lemon Filling recipe is taken. In the tradition of Ms. Pleasant's own recipe books, we list here the ingredients only:


MOLASSES SPONGE CAKE

4 egg yolks
½ c. molasses

4 egg whites
1 tsp. lemon juice

6 TBS. sugar

1 c. flour

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. nutmeg

¼ tsp. mace

½ tsp. soda

LEMON FILLING

4 egg yolks

¼ c. lemon juice

1 TBS. lemon peel, grated

1/3 c. butter, softened

½ c. sugar

Our Photo Curator's birthday served as a suitable venue for multiple tastings by willing staff.
The consensus was that the Molasses Sponge Cake was quite tasty. Some were surprised that there is no ginger and no butter. Opinion was divided, however, on the lemon filling as an accompaniment; about half felt it was just right while the other half thought it was too strong for the flavor of the cake. “It wakes up your taste buds” was one comment about the lemon filling; to steal copy from a well-known hair gel: "a little dab’ll do ya!" All agreed that the sweetened whipped cream was a nice touch.

The San Francisco Public Library has several sources of information on Mary Ellen Pleasant. In addition to the Pleasant Papers, there are two books of particular note: Lynn Hudson's The Making of 'Mammy Pleasant' which examines Pleasant's life and its interpretation by others, including Holdredge; and Mammy Pleasant by Helen Holdredge.