Baking in America: Traditional and Contemporary Favorites From the Past 200 Years is not quite what it purports to be. In the 250 recipes contained here, American favorites such as chocolate-chip cookies and pumpkin pie are inexplicably absent.

What author Greg Patent has done is present a study of American baking from roughly the Colonial period through World War II, with a few modern recipes thrown into the mix. Scouring cookbooks and diaries, he found recipes that had been popular at one point in our history, and adapted ingredients and methods to today's kitchen.

In this book from Houghton Mifflin ($35), you'll find the original Parker House Rolls, Martha Washington's Currant Cake and a favorite fruitcake of Emily Dickinson.

I had fun with a gingerbread-cake recipe from the late 1880s that called for cooking the brown sugar, molasses and spices in a saucepan, then adding baking soda to create a frothy mixture reminiscent of cotton candy that then was incorporated into the dough.

Not all the recipes are historic, however. Patent has included some recent ones, such as a winner in the Culinary Institute of America apple-pie baking contest and a few with modern ingredients such as Blueberry Pie With Amaretti Streusel.

The book would make a nice addition to the collection of a baker interested in American culinary history, but it is not so all-encompassing as to be a mainstay in the kitchen.

Gingerbread Little Cakes

Makes about 24 cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided use

1/2 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

1/2 cup firmly packed light or dark brown sugar

1/2 cup molasses (Grandma's preferred)

2 teaspoons ground ginger

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cardamom

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 8 tablespoon-size pieces

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Combine 1 tablespoon of the flour with crystallized ginger in a small bowl and toss to coat; set aside. Combine the brown sugar, molasses, ground ginger, cinnamon and cardamom in a medium-heavy saucepan.

Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon. Immediately add the baking soda and stir as the mixture becomes thick and foamy and rises to the top of the pan. Remove from the heat and stir in the butter until melted. Stir in the egg. Gradually stir in the remaining flour in 3 or 4 additions, adding the chopped ginger after the second addition. The dough will be stiff.

Scrape the dough onto a sheet of waxed paper and knead it briefly to mix well. Cool to room temperature. Adjust two oven racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Line two baking sheets with cooking parchment or silicone liners. Transfer the dough to an unfloured work surface and pat or roll it to a 3/8 -inch thickness. Cut into shapes with cookie cutters and transfer to the baking sheets, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Gather the scraps and pat them out again, and cut more cookies.

Bake for about 15 minutes, reversing the sheets from top to bottom and front to back once during baking, until cookies look puffy and feel soft; do not overbake. Let cool on the pans for 5 minutes, then, with a wide metal spatula, carefully transfer them to racks to cool completely. Store airtight. These keep fresh for days.