Lifestyle

This Gingerbread From Fannie Farmer’s 1896 Cookbook Needs No Eggs and Just 7 Ingredients

By Mike Harper · October 24, 2026

Long before boxed mixes, a Boston cooking teacher printed a gingerbread that asks for nothing more than molasses, boiling water, flour, baking soda, ground ginger, salt and melted butter. There are no eggs, no milk and no sugar beyond what the molasses brings.

It is called Hot Water Gingerbread, and it opens the gingerbread chapter of Fannie Merritt Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, first published in 1896. According to Smithsonian magazine, the book sold around 360,000 copies by the time Farmer died in 1915. Farmer, who had become principal of the Boston Cooking School by the early 1890s, asked home cooks to use standardized teaspoons, tablespoons and cups and to measure everything level rather than heaped. Smithsonian credits the book with popularizing the modern recipe format.

The recipe as Farmer printed it. The 1896 first edition lists 1 cup molasses, 1/2 cup boiling water, 2 1/4 cups flour, 1 teaspoon soda, 1 1/2 teaspoons ginger, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 3 tablespoons melted butter. The directions are just as short: “Add water to molasses. Mix and sift dry ingredients, combine mixtures, add butter, and beat vigorously. Pour into a buttered shallow pan, and bake twenty-five minutes in a moderate oven.”

A thrifty swap. Farmer added that chicken fat “tried out and clarified furnishes an excellent shortening, and may be used in place of butter.” The 1910 revised edition kept the directions nearly word for word, though the butter had gone up to 4 tablespoons.

What “moderate oven” means. Cooks of Farmer’s day judged heat by experience. Her revised edition says flatly: “No oven thermometer has yet proved practical.” Today, Allrecipes translates a moderate oven as 350 degrees, a slow oven as around 300, and a hot oven as 400 and up.

For a modern pan size and baking time, there is help from a recent cookbook. In Braided Heritage, published in 2025, cookbook author Jessica B. Harris bakes a version of Hot Water Gingerbread in a greased 8-inch square pan at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes, according to an excerpt in Taste and Travel magazine. Her version adds 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar and calls for blackstrap molasses. Here is how the original comes together in a modern kitchen.

Grease the pan. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and butter an 8-inch square pan.

Start with the molasses. Stir the 1/2 cup of boiling water into the cup of molasses.

Sift the dry ingredients. Sift the flour, baking soda, ginger and salt together, then stir them into the molasses mixture.

Add the butter and beat. Pour in the melted butter and beat until the batter is smooth. Farmer’s word was “vigorously.”

Bake and test. Farmer’s shallow pan baked in 25 minutes, and Harris gives about 35 minutes for her 8-inch square. Start checking early and take it out when a toothpick in the center comes out clean.

Harris cuts her pan into nine pieces and suggests serving them warm or at room temperature, topped with whipped cream if you like. If you want the cinnamon and brown sugar from her version, they go in with the dry ingredients and the butter, respectively.

This article is for general information. Ovens and pans vary, so watch the first batch closely and adjust the time as needed. This article was produced with the assistance of AI and fact-checked against the sources cited by LightWave Reports.