Molasses?

[Ellp]

Can someone explain to me the differences in various types of molasses?

Dh had been asking about a gingerbread cake that we had nearly 10 years ago in a restaurant. Last week I came across a recipe for a cake that was very similar to it and I made it. Turns out that I probably used a wrong type of molasses because the cake was very dark coloured compared to the magazine photo that was included with the recipe. The flavour was also very strong, overpowering the cake.

The recipe called for dark molasses and I used blackstrap as it was the only one I had. Was that an ok subsitute?

[ollyoxenfree]

For baking, I use "fancy" molasses. It's lighter and sweeter than blackstrap because it is the syrup from pure sugar cane juice. Blackstrap is more bitter because it's a byproduct liquid after as much sugar as is economically retrievable is removed from the crushed cane. It's produced after the third boiling of the cane syrup.

There is also "cooking" molasses which is a combination of the two.

Here is some information about the different kinds.

Some people prefer the taste of blackstrap and find fancy molasses is too sweet. I'd say it's an ok substitute if the less sweet, more robust flavour is what you want. We have a bit of a sweet tooth in our family, so I use fancy more often.