Squares of dark brown, dense gingerbread with a flat, slightly shiny top, cut from a buttered rectangular earthenware baking dish, one square lifted out and set beside the dish, showing a close, moist crumb. — Dense molasses gingerbread cut in squares in an earthenware baking dish.

Lafayette Gingerbread (1864)

Name: Lafayette Gingerbread
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 50 min
Total time: 1 h 50 min
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 1 tbsp butter, for the pan; 2 large cinnamon sticks; 36 whole allspice berries; 36 whole cloves; ½ lb unsalted butter, softened; ½ lb dark brown sugar; 2 cups unsulphured molasses; 4 tbsp ground ginger; 5 large eggs; 1½ lb all-purpose flour; 2 lemons

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Lafayette gingerbread of 1864: a dark molasses cake with brown sugar, butter, five eggs, freshly ground cinnamon, allspice and cloves, a great deal of ginger and two lemons.

By The Forgotten MenuPublished Oct 30, 2026

Recipe makes: One 9 x 13-inch gingerbread, 24 squares
Prep: 30 min
Cook: 50 min
Total: 1 hr 50 min

Half an hour to grind the spices and mix, about 50 minutes in the oven, and 30 minutes cooling in the pan before it is firm enough to cut.

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Dense molasses gingerbread cut in squares in an earthenware baking dish.

The story behind the recipe

Five eggs, a pint of molasses and a pound and a half of flour, with no soda or pearl-ash to lift them: Lafayette Gingerbread is a dense, dark molasses cake with a great deal of ginger, three dozen cloves, as many allspice berries and two lemons. A Poetical Cook-Book, dedicated by Maria J. Moss to Philadelphia’s Sanitary Fair in 1864, puts it among the cakes under two lines from Thomas Moore: “Must see Rheims, much famed, ’tis said, / For making kings and gingerbread.”

Why is it called Lafayette Gingerbread?

The book does not say. Philadelphia cooks knew the type. Eliza Leslie’s Directions for Cookery (1837) has a Soft Gingerbread built on the same pint of molasses and half pound of butter, with the eggs and flour added by turns and lemon at the end, though hers takes milk and nutmeg and no allspice. Leslie puts the lemon in because her mixture has no pearl-ash, an early chemical raising agent; Moss’s has none either.

A better-known story belongs to another recipe. Mount Vernon publishes a Lafayette Gingerbread credited to George Washington’s mother, Mary Ball Washington, and says that according to family tradition she served gingerbread when the Marquis de Lafayette visited her at Fredericksburg in 1781. That is a family tradition, and nothing in Moss’s book connects her receipt to it. What Was in the 1864 Sanitary Fair Cookbook? follows the book from Oak Lodge to Logan Square.

Making it today

Moss counts her spices by the piece, “three dozen grains of allspice, three dozen of cloves,” so this version grinds the whole spices fresh, our choice, and sifts them. The full batch fits a 9 x 13-inch pan. Without a raising agent it rises only a little, and stirring the batter “very light” with the eggs is what keeps it from being leaden. Unsulphured molasses is the closest modern match for her sugarhouse molasses; blackstrap is too bitter. For a party, the Cocoanut Pudding (1864) bakes in the same moderate oven.

Five eggs, half pound of brown sugar, half pound fresh butter, a pint of sugarhouse molasses, a pound and a half of flour, four tablespoonfuls of ginger, two large sticks of cinnamon, three dozen grains of allspice, three dozen of cloves, juice and grated peel of two lemons. Stir the butter and sugar to a cream; beat the eggs very well; pour the molasses at once into the butter and sugar. Add the ginger and other spice, and stir all well together. Put in the eggs and flour alternately, stirring all the time. Stir the whole very hard, and put in the lemon at the last. When the whole is mixed, stir it till very light. Butter an earthen pan, or a thick tin or iron one, and put the gingerbread in it. Bake it in a moderate oven an hour or more, according to its thickness, or you may bake it in small cakes or little tins.

[Maria J. Moss]A Poetical Cook-Book (Philadelphia: Caxton Press of C. Sherman, Son & Co., 1864), Lafayette Gingerbread, pp. 121–122

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Ingredients

For One 9 x 13-inch gingerbread, 24 squares. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for One 9 x 13-inch gingerbread, 24 squares.

Butter, for the pan1 tbsp
Large cinnamon sticks2
Allspice berries36
Cloves36
Unsalted butter, softened0.5 lb
Dark brown sugar0.5 lb
Unsulphured molasses2 cups
Ground ginger4 tbsp
Large eggs5
All-purpose flour1.5 lb
Lemons2

Ingredients as written here

1 tbsp butter, for the pan
2 large cinnamon sticks
36 whole allspice berries
36 whole cloves
½ lb unsalted butter, softened
½ lb dark brown sugar
2 cups unsulphured molasses
4 tbsp ground ginger
5 large eggs
1½ lb all-purpose flour
2 lemons

Equipment

9 x 13-inch baking pan, metal or glazed earthenware
Spice grinder or mortar and pestle
Fine sieve
Two large mixing bowls
Electric mixer or wooden spoon
Zester and juicer
Skewer and instant-read thermometer

Instructions

Heat the oven to 350°F (175°C) and grease the baking pan with the butter for the pan.
Break the cinnamon sticks into small pieces and grind them with the allspice berries and cloves to a fine powder. Sift the powder and grind any coarse bits again.
Finely grate the zest of the lemons, then squeeze their juice.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and brown sugar together until creamy and lighter in color, about 3 minutes.
In the other bowl, beat the eggs until frothy and pale, 2 to 3 minutes.
Pour the molasses into the butter and sugar all at once and beat until smooth. Beat in the ginger and the ground spices.
Add the eggs and the flour alternately, a little at a time, beating all the while, beginning and ending with flour.
Beat the batter hard for 1 minute. Stir in the lemon zest and juice, then beat until the batter is smooth and a little lighter, about 2 minutes more.
Scrape the batter into the pan and level the top. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until the top springs back when pressed, a skewer in the center comes out clean and the center reads about 200°F (93°C), well past the 160°F (71°C) the eggs need.
Cool in the pan for 30 minutes, then cut into squares.

Nutrition

305calories per serving

Recipe makes: One 9 x 13-inch gingerbread, 24 squares
Servings: 24

Estimated per square (24) from USDA FoodData Central values for molasses, flour, butter, brown sugar, eggs and lemon.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Moss’s full quantity fills a 9 x 13-inch pan. Half the batch, with 3 eggs, fits a 9-inch square pan; start checking it after 35 minutes.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the servings.

The ingredients and their amounts are Moss’s. We grind and sift whole spices and chose the oven setting, pan size, baking time, doneness checks and cooling time; she gives “a moderate oven an hour or more, according to its thickness.” If you use ground spices, our estimate for Moss’s whole ones is 2 teaspoons cinnamon, 1 teaspoon allspice and 1½ teaspoons cloves. Wrap it well and eat it within 3 days. Contains eggs, gluten and dairy.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; pan sizes and cooking times need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.