Sometimes we end up with random ingredients in our apartment and it’s up to me to find a way to make use of them. So was the case when it came to a bottle of molasses that my roommate bought to create some sort of natural hair treatment. I think some of the hair product is still in our freezer, whereas the remaining half-full bottle of molasses stood in our cabinet waiting for me to determine its fate. My mind settled on molasses cupcakes. I didn’t find many useful recipes in an initial Google search, but upon further investigation I learned that molasses in the main ingredient in gingerbread. At this point I settled on this gingerbread cake recipe from Food Network. I adapted the recipe to remove the gingerbread spices and turn the batter into cupcakes to yield the molasses cake featured below. They were topped with vanilla bean buttercream before getting transported to a friend’s birthday party. One person said they were “the best cupcakes [she] ever tasted!” Take that as an indication of whether or not you should bake them for yourself.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup unsulphured molasses
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
- 3 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup water
- 1 tablespoon baking soda
- Vanilla Bean Buttercream
Yield: about 2 dozen cupcakes
Procedure:
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners.
- In a large bow, whisk together the oil, sugar, molasses, and eggs until smooth. Whisk in the flour and salt until evenly combined.
- Bring the water to a boil in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the baking soda. Whisk the hot water into the cupcake batter until just combined.
- Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. Bake in the middle of the oven until a toothpick inserted into the cupcakes comes out clean, 16 to 18 minutes. Transfer to a rack to let cool for a few minutes in the pan before removing to cool completely. Frost with the Vanilla Bean Buttercream.
Baking with Baking Soda:
One thing to keep in mind with any recipe involving baking soda is the time between mixing the batter and putting it in the oven. Baking soda, or sodium bicarbonate, is a leavening agent that works by creating carbon dioxide upon contact with an acid. (Carbon dioxide is what creates the air bubbles and helps to create the light and airy texture found in some baked goods.) However, it is important to note that this reaction is immediate. This means that if you let the batter sit around for a while before baking it will lead to a tighter crumb. I don’t own enough tins to make 24 cupcakes at once, so I inadvertently did a science experiment to see how this works with the reaction between baking soda and molasses. In the picture above, the cupcake on the left was form the first batch and the one on the right from the second. As you can see, there are large air bubbles in the first and none in the latter. This molasses cake is so soft and light anyway that I couldn’t detect a difference aside from the visual. However, here’s a rule to keep in mind for the future: you should immediately bake any food where baking soda is the only leavening agent and there is something highly acidic—molasses in this instance—in the batter. For more information about how all this works, check out these articles here and here.
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