Nanny's High School Home Ec Class Gingerbread (1937)

I was attracted to this recipe because "Home Ec" is in its title. I have fond memories of my Junior High Home Ec classes, learning such nutritious recipes as Whoopie Pies (but that's a blog for when I bake the Whoopie Pie recipe in this cookbook!).

The smell of gingerbread has its own mystique. It is a bread with a scent that both relaxes and energizes, depending upon your need.  Perhaps doctors should start handing out recipes for gingerbread, to help people with either anxiety issues or inertia? When this gingerbread was in the oven, all I had to do was inhale, and exhale, and all the tension immediately left my shoulders. I then felt energized to plan the next batch of recipes for this coming week. Ah, possibilities, all because of this magical food!

In the directions to the recipe, we are told to "sift dry ingredients together." When was the last time you had to SIFT?!  I remember my mother's flour sifter. It was a metal can with an exterior handle that moved the flour through a mesh screen. All to make your cakes, muffins, and breads "lighter."

I'm sold. This gingerbread is delicious, as well as therapeutic. 'Tis a bread to delight in! Oh, be sure to bake it long enough. The recipe calls for 20 minutes. I think I had to bake it a full 30-35 minutes, and that was in a mini bread tin (I mixed up only a half batch).