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Here's my blog post on why I've been trying to consume more blackstrap molasses:

Today I made a cake, and I modified this recipe in a few ways, to make about half as much cake, increase the amount of spices, and remove some ingredients I didn't want:

And also this icing recipe:

Thanks to the creator of those recipes!

For my modified version of that cake, I put in half the amount of most ingredients, except:

• I put two eggs (like the original recipe), just because I thought that might be healthier than just one egg, and hopefully would be OK for the flavor too.

• I didn't have ordinary white sugar, and I think brown sugar might be healthier, so I used brown sugar instead of white sugar.

• I left out the espresso since I'm rather caffeine sensitive, and my relatives avoid caffeine too.

• I left out the vanilla because vanilla extract often has alcohol in it, and cooking might not remove all alcohol.

• And, since the amount of spices in the original recipe seemed incredibly tiny (in my opinion), I put in 2 spoonfuls of ginger and 1 spoonful of cinnamon, rather than just 2 teaspoons of ginger and 1/2 a teaspoon of cinnamon.

I was actually quite tempted to put even more ginger and cinnamon in. But, I was expecting this cake to already have quite a rich, intense, deep, dark flavor just from all the blackstrap molasses I put in. (3/4ths of a cup - equivalent to 12 tablespoons - and it sure was as slow as molasses to pour!)

So, I thought I probably ought to be cautious with the spices, to avoid possibly making this cake any more extreme. I definitely don't like to overdo ginger, especially, since too much of it can be quite spicy hot.

But, when I tasted it, I wished I had put in a lot more spices, because the gingerbread taste was so tantalizingly faint. Also, the cake looked so much like chocolate, it was also a little disappointing that it didn't taste like chocolate.

My version definitely didn't turn out fudgey, nor particularly intense in any way. Its texture is just like an ordinary cake. I wonder if the extra egg made that happen? Or did I get some of my math wrong when I tried to halve most of the ingredients?

Anyway, it was still pretty good, and will definitely be an enjoyable way to increase my consumption of blackstrap molasses over the next several days.

Whenever I make anything with blackstrap molasses that I haven't ever made before, I'm always half-expecting a quite noxious result, because raw blackstrap molasses is one of the most foul-seeming yet edible substances I know of. (Though I recently discovered that uncooked buttermilk is pretty disagreeable too.)

But this cake wasn't bad at all. I wouldn't describe it as bitter, and in a blind taste test, I probably never would have guessed it even had so much (or maybe any) blackstrap molasses in it. Astonishingly, this actually just seems like a normal cake, with a nice, moist, normal cake texture, and a far more mild flavor than I was expecting.

I'm having a hard time deciding if it needs more sugar or not - I'd almost describe it as semi-sweet, but I think actually it's closer to being almost, but maybe just short of, sweet enough. Or maybe quite sweet enough, depending on my mood. I often actually like not being overwhelmed by excessive sweetness.

I wonder if the non-overwhelming level of sweetness is another result of the extra egg, or maybe I lost too much blackstrap molasses when I didn't try a bit harder to scrape more of it out of my mixing bowl.

If I ever make this cake again, I will definitely use a lot more spices, and maybe I will try using just one egg next time. And maybe a little bit more brown sugar. Also, I think I'd rather make an even smaller quantity of cake, because I think I prefer eating such things fresh-baked.

I guess what would make this cake more convenient to make would be, mixing all the dry ingredients together in advance and storing that mix, so whenever I want to make some cake, I won't have to measure and mix as many different ingredients, since part of the work will already have been done.

Having two ceramic pasta bowls to mix stuff in was convenient, and fortunately, all the mixed together ingredients ended up fitting perfectly in my ceramic casserole dish. As usual, I greased the casserole dish with organic raw coconut oil, which successfully prevented the cake from sticking to the dish at all.

For the icing, I used only 1 bar of cream cheese, but I didn't halve the other ingredients, and I used powdered sugar instead of ordinary white sugar, and no vanilla.

I'm definitely not usually a fan of mixing cheeses and cakes, so, predictably, I wasn't super-thrilled by it. But it was good enough, and definitely better than having no icing at all. It tasted pretty much how I'd expect cream cheese mixed with boiled milk, sugar, and flour to taste.

Another topping I liked for this cake was some of this organic maple syrup. (Though I think I'd prefer one of the stronger-flavored later-harvested syrups like this one, or maybe this one which I haven't yet tried.) And some extra ginger and cinnamon.

I might make this again someday, but I will definitely be adding a lot more ginger and cinnamon next time, and I should probably use a cheeseless icing.

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