{Post Script: a few of you had questions about what to use in place of raw sour milk- and you can add 1 tablespoon of vinegar to your store bought milk to sour it- do not leave pasteurized milk out at room temp to sour!!!}
A Rural Maine Molasses Cookie and What It Tells Us About the Past
I have a handwritten molasses cookie recipe from my great-grandmother, Grammie Whitcomb. When I first baked it, I assumed something was missing. There is no white sugar, no brown sugar, and no added sweetener of any kind. The cookies are not very sweet.
That turns out to be exactly the point.
In rural Maine kitchens of the 1800s and early 1900s, molasses was not just a flavor. It was the sweetener. Refined sugar was costly, sometimes scarce, and not used casually. Molasses, by contrast, arrived cheaply by ship and was a common pantry staple in both coastal and inland households.
Because of this, many everyday baked goods relied on molasses alone. These recipes were practical and filling, meant to nourish rather than indulge. What we would now call cookies were closer to soft biscuits or small spiced cakes, eaten with coffee or tea or packed for work rather than saved for dessert.
The recipe itself reflects this way of cooking. It uses sour milk, a common farm kitchen technique before refrigeration, and baking soda activated directly in the molasses. The spice blend is simple and traditional, relying on cloves and cinnamon rather than sweetness for depth. The proportions lean toward bread rather than confection.
By modern standards, this molasses cookie tastes restrained. By Maine standards of the time, it was familiar and comforting. Our palates have changed, but the recipe has not.
This is not an incomplete recipe or a mistake. It is a small, honest example of how rural Maine families baked when ingredients were valued, sugar was used sparingly, and food was meant to sustain.
The use of shortening in this recipe is just as historically appropriate as the use of molasses. In rural Maine kitchens of the late 1800s and early 1900s, “shortening” was a general term that most often meant rendered lard, though later it could also refer to commercially produced vegetable shortening. Butter was valuable and often reserved for the table or special baking, while lard was inexpensive, shelf-stable, and commonly used for everyday cooking. The simple use of the word “shortening” suggests a transitional period, likely in the early 1900s, when the term was understood to cover whatever practical fat a household kept on hand.
I keep the recipe exactly as it was written, with a note explaining its history, so it does not get corrected by future generations. It reminds me that one cup of molasses really was enough, because for a long time, it had to be.
